Training Without Conflict® 팟캐스트 에피소드 45: Mia Skogster

So the young one is, how is he, is he at all related in any way or? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, his mother is the sister of Glinda and sister of Mahis. And the father is Repi. Okay. So I know everybody basically. Cool. You know everyone. And, and, uh, he is, he is like, I have a feeling that, that he's the next little Helge after Helge. Wow. Like he is really talented in obedience, in tracking, in protection. So everything like, like it makes so much fun to train him because, and it makes fun to live with him. Right. So he's right now there. Yeah. Just behind me. And, uh, but yeah, I, I really enjoy of that because everything that I want to train him is so, so going so smoothly. Yeah. Like I don't have to think that. I know, I know exactly what you're saying. He's a motivated dog and, and, but, but calmer, still like having control of like, like about himself. And, and he's, um, a dog who likes to engage with human and, but not like a, not like a pleaser. So he's really, really nice dog. I really like. Nice. That's always the difference between different, different dogs. And, and sometimes for us as trainers, it's not easy to make these decisions, but, but it's so much. Sometimes we just. For more fun to train and not keep repeating something. You're not hiding off dog. Because the genetic is not allowing it to happen. Right. It's just like. Yes. And then you have to artificially do it with some dogs and that is not making fun. Exactly. And I'm also, and I'm also thinking about this thing. I don't know what we talk in the podcast, perhaps, or, or, or which part you will choose there. And is this coming there already? Um, but, um, um, we are allowed to say that we like, like as a dog trainer, um, people expect that you must enjoy training every single dog to same purpose. And I don't, I just simply don't enjoy that. I may learn something from different types of dogs. Like when I train extremely hard dog or extremely soft dog or extremely impulsive dog or, or, or so on, I can learn something and it's helpful to my career, but it doesn't make me enjoying that training so much. And then when we have the dog that like, we, like we surround ourselves with people who are our type of people, it's much more fun. And the same is also with dogs, but somehow it's like not allowed to say this aloud. Yeah. Yeah. There is that thing of, uh, sometimes, well, I've picked up that dog and now it's my dog. And, and, you know, it's okay. Everybody has a choices to make.

Sometimes it's just really, they're never easy choices, but, but I, I, um, I know what, what it is to, to go train and no matter where you want to go, you know, that you still have to go back and revisit that little thing because it just always going to have to be revisited one way or another, whatever that is. Right. Mm-hmm. And, and kind of really puts the brakes and creates frustration a little bit. And, and to some extent as a trainer, especially when you have experience, you have to kind of decide to maybe let it be as it is or, and not get so fixated on trying to, to change it. But, but it's, these are, these are the hard parts. This is like, and then you have dogs like, like your young one that you're describing or, or any cool dog that they all have problems. I mean, problems, meaning they will struggle at some point with something, right? Yeah. And then they will struggle with something else and then something else, but, but the progression, the, the evolution of their education continues. It doesn't get kind of locked in. Okay. We have a problem and we just have no way of exiting this, you know, and, and these are the tough ones. And it kind of comes always back and it can come back in different disciplines. And then you see that you have some goal to go, but then you kind of know that you don't reach that goal or you have doubts about it. You try your best. And maybe with someone else, with something completely different, which you don't figure it out, like you don't figure out what it is. Right. But maybe it could be possible to reach better results. But then you have those dogs that, that they have just the most important major things. And you have all the time the feeling that we can get there when we just fix this little issue here or that little issue there. But it just feels much more hopeful. Yeah. And it's more fun. I like to fix other type of problems and then some problems, if I have them in certain areas in dog training, they are eating my soul. Mm-hmm. Especially if they are emotional problems. To, to kind of add on top of all that, every trainer that has already accomplished something and has made a name of them for themselves. Then there is that mental battle with yourself because you know very well that at any time you walk on the field, everybody's going to stop and will watch you and will tear it apart. Touch you. Yes. And, and so it's very hard to, to at least, I mean, I'm speaking for myself sometimes, you know, to, to go on the field with the dog that it's your dog that you just know that that's our limit.

And, but then everybody is, well, I just beat Ivan or, or, or, you know, and it's like, I'm just, I know who my dog is. I know where I can get with, if that's the dog. Uh, and there is trainers that kind of have the courage and I, I respect for that, you know, that they can go out there and show and place in top 30 and everybody's going to be well. See and whatever. It's like, no, there's nothing to see. It's like, you enjoy the competition. You enjoy the training and you have the dog that it's, that's the dog. But that also, I think it's a, it's just very personal thing. Like I, I kind of lean more towards your decision to where I, if I had that kind of dog that I know it's not going to be at that competitive edge. I probably will be doing the same thing. I wouldn't get, I will be training. I will give them and I will find something that we do and, and, and, but not go to the high level competition. Cause, uh, if you, I mean, in some way, if you're going with one purpose and you know already the outcome, kind of what's the point, right? Yeah. Like, like exactly like you described, uh, when we go, uh, the world championships, people have their expectation and they are expecting to see the same result. What we have been showing with our previous dogs, no matter how is the personality of our current dog. And if I want to, if I, if I go to the world championships, I do want to show their excellent performances. Yeah. I don't want to go there for, it's just having fun because it, because that is not making fun for me. I can have fun in the training sometimes with this same dog, but it wouldn't be fun to show the dog when I know that, you know, that in the lower classes, it may be excellent, but it won't be there. So, uh, let me ask you this. I kind of, it's interesting for me now because, uh, when, when was it that you, because, you know, like even when last year, when you were here and we were hanging out and you already, it was in your head. Like I was unable to, I mean, I see when you were saying, well, look at this, it's not quite, and I can see something, but you, you knew already that there is a struggle that you may or may not, it may not work out for you. So when, when was it kind of, how, how did you end up? When did you see that he may not be the type of dog and, and when did you really started to kind of come to the conclusion of, okay, maybe, maybe I focus on the young one. You know, uh, only when I kept him as a little puppy, it was clear that he was the lowest prey driven dog of the, of the litter.

So he stayed with me because that time I didn't have a buyer for him and the brothers were more driven, all the three brothers. So he was the low, he didn't play, he didn't fight. And then this fighting spirit, I'm like being expecting it to come like better. He, he fights in protection, but, uh, there, uh, it comes more out of the defense drive. It comes out of more, a little bit different direction than the poor desire to continue fight. You see, and, and the energy comes out of different things. Um, and, and there, um, it comes out of the pressure kind of, he, he, he goes always forward for the pressure when it comes from the helper. However, um, this has, this has been something that I couldn't get him fighting with me so well. And it, it's also visible in obedience kind of giving up easily, um, in tracking or, or in obedience. And in, it's just a poorly, the, um, fighting, fighting, uh, isn't so motivating. So I have been like waiting, trying to get him more energetic, especially, I think we will see it in the recalls and, and under the trees and, and some things like this. Um, and, um, it has been like, I, I really, really, really have known that. I know also this hopeful attitude that if we can believe in something, maybe my negative attitude has affected on that. I don't know. Uh, I have tried not to show it to my doc in the training sessions. But I'm sure you, you, you played at all. I am, I'm sure you gave it all. This, I don't doubt it. But, but it, it, it has been like, like, you know, I have to really put an act on that a lot. And so, and I have waited, I think now when he's three years old and I have tried all possible. And in my opinion, impossible things to make him, um, to that level where I would like to like to see him. And I didn't succeed. And I brought him to the competition. And before the competition, I already knew, I mean, not competitions, but, uh, trials like IGP one, IGP two, BH. I knew only then, um, kind of the outcome. And, and, and so, so it's, he did exactly there what I expected him to do. Nothing less, nothing more, maybe even a little better what I had courage to believe. But, uh, but still, um, I believe that if, if there come more competitions under and, and we would go to the world championships, where it will be long traveling distances, a lot of stress because the rock has to be like living two weeks in the hotels and so on. I think it can come much worse. And, and, and we know in FMBB, there would be like two times obedience, hopefully we would qualify.

And, and, and the same is also a little bit in the tracking, even, even everything has improved all the time. It has come better, but yeah, it kind of like kind of, kind of, it has been there all the time, but I have tried to keep my hope up. Yeah. The hard thing is sometimes, very rarely, I have to admit that this is not a common thing, but a dog that doesn't do well, doesn't do well. And next thing you know, they're six years old and all of a sudden, somehow every piece comes right where it should be. And it happens. And, and, and, and, and like, like, like some simple things like, which is sounds so crazy. Like, if I ask my dog to lay down and I ask him to sit up, you know, like I have food here in my hand. I'm like, sit. And this is so crazy. But since I had my older dog as a puppy age, he didn't want to do that. He, when he goes down, he always comes up like super slowly. No matter if I have food, if I ask him to bark, if I, if I throw him a toy, I have used assistant handlers who pull him away and I let them bark and, and so on. And then I take Voitto the puppy and, and, and, and, and, and I'm like, Hey, I have food here. I say, sit. And he has so much fun. Yes. Anticipated. And, and, and that makes me now, I'm like, and I'm showing it to my training friends. Like, look, look, look, my puppy can rise up and he likes it. And they are like, I'm crazy or something. Yes. And it's almost, and it's almost not as important what, what the reinforcer, what the reward is. It's just the natural desire to, to do with you, right? Something with you. Exactly. To where, when you have, even like you take a, a recall and with some dog, you just constantly, they can come fast, but you constantly have to make sure that you keep it interesting for them. And then there is these dogs that you don't need to do nothing and they will break their legs just to come to you. And every time ears up and like, Hey, here I am. Right. And, and, and no matter if you have just be, for example, calling them with a bad voice because they have been running in the forest and perhaps there was a deer and you have been like, Hey, stop that here. And they're like, yeah, I come. And then you have the other dog that you have never said a bad word, but you have to all the time think that you are smiling and, and you show like no pressure with your body. And you do like a circus after and still they are like, but I don't know if I'm so motivated to do this. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. No, no. That's, that's it. That's it.

Same thing with the dumbbell or ending, but this, you know, like this kind of, I always think about this and, and I actually started to think even more deeply about this. Like after the bunch of F and BBs and this kind of stuff with, you know, what do we want? And, and the two dogs that you're describing, this is the, probably the most, um, not the most obvious, but the, the biggest dilemma, like as a judge, like if I'm a judge, I think it would be important for me to try. And, and, um, I have to be careful how I word this, but to try meaning to, from what I'm watching between the two dogs. If I, as a judge can separate and say, well, this dog has a freaking natural talent and this dog is really well trained. And I think a lot of our problems in the sport come from this kind of, on one hand, you want the judge to do that, right? Like I, I want to, it's very hard. But if I am like speaking as a breeder and you breed and I breed, we kind of want that dog. That it's the natural talent, but then there is a competition. Competition. So in competition, in, in one hand, everything goes like, if you can beat me, you beat me, whatever you can. If you master some strategies and techniques and you can fool everybody, you know, a dog comes super fast, makes great work and whatever. But it's not, he is not, that's not who the dog is, right? This is a high maintenance training. And then there is that other one that just comes so easy, everything. And how do we, like, I, I really think this is, uh, one of the challenges in the sport to balance great training and still show which dog has the role talent of, of, you know, like, you know where I'm going. Like, it's kind of hard to, to put it all in words, but you, I know you understand what I'm saying. Absolutely. And I think it's also so important that, at, um, that's why the process when we are training the dog, it tells, I mean, the competition results there a lot, like, like already now we can see that what, there is a dog who looks good in Instagram videos. Right. But when we really bring it to the high level championships, um, we can see some, uh, challenges in the dog. And it's also super interesting because I have been testing my dog in, in Finland, in this kind of polis canine test. And those polis, um, polis, uh, polis, uh, they, they liked my dog in protection and they were like, ah, you shouldn't like, like, like, like they, they were like, we are convinced that this dog would make a really nice career as a polis dog. And I'm sure too, like from, from everything that I saw a year ago here, I, I, I am a hundred percent. Yeah.

But still to use this dog for breeding, I would go for the brothers and the sisters, because there are dogs as a brothers and sisters who show the natural talent. They have more drive and more, more things, what we want to see. And, and I think that's what, what breeding is all about. So if we, you know what I mean? Like we can try to go for this direction more, that, okay, we select those dogs that have, that are like the more, most talented from the, from the litter. Um, and, and it's also sometimes interesting because some sport dogs, they can do good carrier as a polis dogs. And then we have those dogs who can do good carrier, uh, um, like, like as a sport dog, you know, like vice versa. Uh, but then, uh, the best ones could do both like super high level. And I think those would be the dogs that I would like to use for breeding for example. When you think of IGP, what do you want it to be? Like, like staying with what we are talking. Like, I mean, is it, how much do we want to put emphasis on the, the skill of a trainer? How much do we want to put emphasis on the role talent of the dog? How much we want to put emphasis on the combination? Like, in your mind, if you had a choice to make without like ignore all the force free and all the like politics about it. But like, if you had a choice, what would you like that you be to be? Haha, tough one. I think I would kind of like it to be like 50 50 so that in the high level we need to, IGP should always be the working dog sport that measures the qualities of a dog. And I have been often talking about this, that we have to know, uh, or people who are watching this sport, they should know what are the exercises that differ from IGP to, for example, obedience where, which is supposed to like, like international obedience competition. FCI obedience is measuring basically, or it should be measuring mostly the handler's talent. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, of course it also, we need to have also talented dog. We know that border collies are ruling there. But I know, I know what you're saying. It's the technical part. The technical part. But the technical part, but I think that how this sport differs. And I'm often thinking this, that, uh, when I'm, when I'm thinking about like my dog's challenges, like where can you see his challenges? If you, if, if I wouldn't like to point this because judges may look this. Right, right, right. Right. Uh, but, and, and I know that not all of them maybe, no, but I, I, I try to be honest. So I like to be honest. I'm finished person. So I can tell it.

Um, so, um, so my dog is struggling exactly recalls, uh, retrieves, uh, in those parts, not jumps, jumps can be also telling something about genetics. And a lot of dogs are struggling with that. Yes. But if you think about international obedience, we don't have their one meter hurdles. We don't have two kilo dumbbell. We don't have, um, like, like, and the retrieves comes always in the end of the pattern. So if the dog is not brave enough to jump or he won't, but one time touches the hurdle, he should be that tough that he goes over it again. He should have naturally desired to bring it, uh, close to the handler without feeling it as a pressure when he has to give it to somebody. He shouldn't only enjoy of fetching something. He should be also able with a good training and with good trainers. But nowadays we have so much information with like worldwide. Uh, most of people know already how to train this positive, really positive way. And still we have dogs who are struggling with that. They don't, they don't, they don't want to bring it so open to the handler. And if they do, then they are chewing or the grip is weak or something. So, so, or they, or they take this pressure naturally because they have to sit there and they don't feel comfortable to be, they just enjoy just, you know, attacking the dumbbell or something. But, but exactly this part, um, is something that I think that it, it, it, it tells us something about the qualities more than heating itself. Um, you know, you can have a, you can have a, a really, really nice, uh, a Cocker Spaniel or, or a Chihuahua who makes a beautiful heating. Uh, but those dogs, they can't do the hurdles. Um, although they can do also really, they can do really nice, uh, recalls though. But so, so things like this, um, and there is also one, I mean, even to, to add to what you're saying, which I totally agree with all of it. But even there, there is even more, and that is the protection aspect of the, like, uh, any dog that's doing protection, they have that self-confidence. I mean, a good protection dog. Yes. They have that self-confidence to sometimes say, well, it's going to be, I don't necessarily think I'm going to cooperate right now. To where the, the all obedience dogs, they're selected not to have that kind of stomp my food. Like I'm, I'm a dominant confident. Like what, what do you mean? Yes. Right. So it's a, there, there, there is that on top of everything that you said. Mm-hmm.

Because we can have a really, really nice dog who is shining in obedience part, but then the same dog is lacking the dominance and the self-confidence and the, um, kind of robust personality. Yeah. Um, brave bravery, or I'm not sure if my English words are correct. No, no, it's exactly right. Hopefully. Um, but, but, but this is a completely different when we have to have this kind of, uh, multipurpose dog, who is really, really good in protection. And then, uh, and I, and I, I really would love to see judges, like you said before, that we should see where the dog's fighting. Like, uh, you, you mentioned just that it would be nice to see if the judges could see the real talent of the dog. Mm-hmm. And I think that's also interesting in protection that if the judges can really see why the dog is fighting, is he fighting because he's a little bit nervous? If he's fighting because he's a little bit avoidance, avoiding, uh, to be close to the, to the helper, or if the dog is fighting because he really enjoys to fight and stay close to the helper and, and, and, um, push the helper and, and so on. And, um, and, um, and, and the same is also in the guarding phases. We can see dogs who guard and they may look like they don't look away. They are guarding, but we still see that, uh, from their body and from their, um, from everything that, uh, that's. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I did, uh, it just kind of reminds me of the conversation I had, uh, when I had, uh, Harry Archon on the podcast. Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . And, and we kind of talked about this. I actually have talked pretty much with everybody about this because it's a, it's a topic we, we have to talk about. And he, man, he, he said some really cool things about, uh, like a lot of things. Any, anyone that's listening that hasn't checked out that podcast, I, I highly recommend it. But, but he, uh, um, talked about how at present time it becomes harder and harder to be able to separate this magical, excellent training that can mask some qualities that the dog doesn't have. Right. And, and so that makes the judge's job extremely difficult. If their job is not only to give the points, but also to try to figure it out within this eight minutes of performance, how, where is, how much talent and genetics that dog has and what percentage is the training? I think the beautiful thing is exactly that we have all these three disciplines and even the best trainers usually, even they can hide some qualities in protection. Mm-hmm .

They, they rarely can then hide it in obedience or, you know, like, or we can hide it in obedience, but then we cannot hide it in protection. So it's super difficult. So it's super difficult if the dog has some, you know, important, uh, challenges in the character or some, something, but he's lacking. It's difficult to, uh, hide them in both of these parts to make like excellent in obedience and excellent in protection. In my opinion, even, even the best trainers. For sure. Even the best trainers. So kind of the best trainers can end up maybe getting like very good results in other one and excellent in the other, but it's hard to make it excellent. I think then, um, but yeah, it's, it's, uh, but when you ask about this, um, what is important? So I think that, um, I would love to see dogs, uh, that judges reward dogs who have, uh, uh, good, uh, heart, uh, good fighting spirit. They are dominant. They are confident dogs, uh, self-confident and, and brave dogs. And they have also, uh, reasonably good, uh, impulse control that they are not too hectic. They can concentrate and they can focus. So, um, this kind of, uh, solid dogs who are good fighters, um, because this is something what I'm missing. So often I can see solid dogs, but they are lacking energy or they are lacking dominance, or I can see dogs who have, uh, a lot of fight inside them, but it comes a little bit out of the nerves. So I think that is something what would be fantastic. If, if judges, when they see that, that they wouldn't be so, um, cool. If the dog, for example, makes one time adjusting his grip fuller, you know, under the pressure face or somewhere. Mm-hmm . So, so, so, so that they don't then kill those dogs to the field or giving them the same, giving them same points than those dogs who are just super well trained, but don't possess those qualities. Um, I think that is the one thing. I think that is the one thing. So that we like this selective. Yeah. Yeah. I like that because the, the, I mean, really, I mean, you have a dog like, okay, the transition phase. Now we are like, like super focused on trying to make that. And because we are trying to make it through training, we're, we are still, what we are doing, we are trying to, if there is a, uh, something going on there, we're trying to mask that. And, and so when the dog, you know, you, the, the helper locks up and the dog makes this one. Mm. And then shakes off there or something. Is that good or bad, right? Versus the dog that just hangs in there.

And, and, and, and all the types of dogs that you described, ultimately we, they like, uh, when you're intelligent breeder, all of those dogs have place in a breeding program. Because they add something that's missing. Right? Like it's not the, like, we cannot constantly focus on, on this one. I do. We need, we need the one that's a little more edgy. We need the one that's a little more stable. We need the one that's a little more lazy. Like there, there is always a little bit of a spice that the dish needs. Right? Yeah. The sports becoming, to me, I think more of a sport than the ability to select dogs. Like I very rarely, no, I shouldn't even say that. I'm trying to be careful with my words. I'm saying very rarely, but I should just be very straightforward. I would never pick a dog for breeding based on, on scores that, regardless of how many championships. Simply because of that problem that we have in the sport. We, we don't know who that dog is. You must see the dog. You must see the dog. You must see the performance. In person. Yes. You cannot know the dog's personality type. If the dog has got 290 points. For example. It can, it can be very, you can get the same points with different types of dogs. If they have been trained extremely well. If they have been trained extremely well. And then you need to know what kind of female you have. If you select, for example, you know, what kind of male you need for her. And, and you need to know the, the, the sisters and the brothers and the parents, litter mates, and all these things and how these lines usually fit together. And there are, there are a lot of things to consider. And there is still going to be many question marks, but, but that would be the right way to go. Yes. Still, you have to make the litter and see what's happening. I don't think this is for the podcast. Natalia is going to kill me, but I mean, the, her female, the sister of your Mahis. She's insane. She's like, like there, there is nothing. Like it's, it's the kind of dog that you're like, okay, what are we training today? Because we could do anything. There is nothing that we have to work on. You know, it is just mind blowing how cool it can be. When, when everything somehow comes together, you know, now that, I mean, I always have played. Like I always, like in fact, I know I've told you before, but I mean, after I went out of Bulgaria and went to Belgium, the first thing I was doing after all the Russian military training protection dogs, it was, I got exposed more into Belgian ring and then eventually some mundial.

And then, as I moved to the States, that's when they were like, there is not much, you got to switch to a shoot's home at the time. And, and there is, I'm saying it because I kind of know both and I used to always say the one kind of disadvantage. And, and there is disadvantages in both. Like, I don't want anybody to start getting upset about what I'm saying here. I, I like both sports clearly because I'm doing both sports. But, it, it used to be that in IGP, we can show a dominant dog. And in ring sport, that wasn't even important. It's still not important. As long as the dog makes some noise and it's quick to react and doesn't miss a bite, it doesn't matter how dominant. And in fact, if they are too dominant, they will tend to be harder to control. They will tend to lose tens of a second on every bite and they have, you know, and IGP was the, or, or shoot one and then IPO. And then we moved to IGP. Not, not that the names matter, but just the progression, the evolution of the years. I think, I think one of the really cool things and the part of the IGP rules was the guarding. Because you can, it doesn't matter how you, okay, it is, I'm so stupid saying these things. Of course, it matters how you bite. But, how you guard, that's why there are so many points in there. Because it's actually, whomever, those people that came up way back then with the rules and hopefully that never changes. But they decided to give so many points for guarding. Because it really shows when in that separation, who do you have now? Who is that dog? How is he standing his ground, right? And in ring sport, this is overlooked. It's just not a thing. Not that they cannot make it, but it's not a thing. But even this starts to change now in IGP. I mean, forget stick hits. Okay. Well, I'm not going to even, we shouldn't even talk about this because it's, for me, it's a sad time. But, like, I feel that we are a little bit lost in what direction we want to take. Like, where do we want to take the sport and how much all this political pressure affects us, right? Mm-hmm. And isn't it crazy that in the old times you thought that IGP, IPO or Schutzhund was the sport where you can see the dogs who are, like, guarding strongly. And if you select the dog for breeding, that kind of, well, I don't say that we even then had them in IGP exact. But the idea that we can see easier in that sport, it should be evaluated how dominant the dog is.

And then nowadays, it almost goes for this direction, that if we want to have a dominant dog, we actually have to go for those sports, like, like, ring sport or, or, or, or KMPV to get that dog for breeding, who can give you some dominance to your guarding faces. Yes, it's crazy. In IGP. And we both have done that few times in our breedings. Yeah, so this is somehow really interesting that, that, that kind of, some things feel lost. And, and the better trainers we have become, I think, the more we are lacking the natural dominance somehow in the dogs. Mm-hmm . In it. It's not only about the dominance, it's also about a certain kind of, would the poise, would be, would it be the right word? When the dog is like really confident and really cool. But the kind of like, not nervous way cool, but the kind of, like with, like with people, you know, the kind of person that who is just, I'm here. Yeah. Yes. Walks into a room. You can come if you want. And it's like, hey, we can argue or we can have fun. And, and I don't get like, yeah. And on the other way around, when you ask about where IGP should go, and this is also something what I'm, and that is so interesting because that's, that's another thing, completely another thing is that in order to keep this sport and make this sport more popular. We, we should go more, we should try to make it more exciting to watch for people who don't have IGP dogs. So normal people, just normal dog lovers that we would get their audience watching it and, and, and make it like a big, nice event. So we should think everything else around it in order to keep this sport alive and, and, and make it even make it more growing. And, and, and I, I was very surprised. I was in Australia this year and I saw people doing their PSA. Yes. And it seems to be very fun. I don't know anything about PSA, but it looked a lot of fun. And I was even trying to put the PSA suit on. Right. So I took some PSA dogs. It was really, really cool. And, and, and, and, and, and it, it, it seems to be that, and they told me that it's the most like fastest growing dog sport, I think in Australia, maybe also in USA that more and more people do that. And that seems to, uh, excite people, um, you know, to do, um, to start to train their working dogs. Mm-hmm. So how, how is it in America? Is it also in US, uh, fastest or faster growing if, if you compare for IGB or ring sports? And what do you think about this sport? Cool. Oh, you're going to have me crucified. Um, yeah, good one, Mia. Thank you. Um, okay. I'll, I'll think of something to get you back, but I'll answer. Um, man, this is a very tough one.

I, I think there is no question. I, I have nothing against PSA that, that has to be clear. Um, if, if I have something against that, that would be, um, like a lot of training that I have seen, it's kind of, not as, uh, not as intelligent as what we would do in IGP. And that's a big turn off for me. Okay. Like, like it's a, typically that there is a lot of confrontation between dog handler and a helper. And, and that is a very intelligent ways to go about certain sequences in training that, uh, some of them do, but a lot of them don't have an idea what to do. And, and, and. It's kind of a new sport though. If it, it. So. Well, it's new. Maybe it also. It's new. It's new. It's new. Maybe, maybe it is. Maybe. How, how, how? Maybe. Maybe. I mean, considering like IGP, when IGP started, I'm pretty sure that the methods have been also not that clever in the beginning. Well, you're correct. The cool thing about IGP. Yep. In my opinion. Is the evolution that we see. Like what you, you can see, like we can watch dogs from how far back, like maybe the seventies when there was still video, some sketchy black and white things. And we can see a clear, like almost with every five years, a very distinct jump in, in, in improvement of what we do. Um, we also, as much as even today, we try to crucify judging and rules. There is this, like we in IGP appreciate and accept the challenge to create control, to have dominance and not to have that suppression. It's very important to us. Um, in, I, in, in PSA, at least at the moment, this is still, even though there is evolution, of course there is. I mean, you, you have to evolve to some level, but, but it's not to the extent, like maybe, maybe we have went actually too far in IGP. I don't know. Maybe we, we got super fixated and, and we need to kind of come back a little bit. Right. But, but I think at the same time, IGP is the sport in the whole world that dictates and demonstrates techniques that, okay, you can have all these three. You can have a harmony, you can have dominance, and you can have precision without suppression. And when I mean without suppression, that I have to be very clear. That doesn't mean that we don't use any form of pressure, but we use it in such a way that the dog understands how to handle it and grow out of it instead of staying in this negative mindset, you know? Mm-hmm. And I don't think, I really don't think there is any, any other sport on that level. But again, PSA is not a, it is popular.

There is many people that would, not many people, but there are people that would move from ring sport to IGP to PSA. But I also see a lot of people that do PSA that want to actually do more. Okay. Move out of PSA and go to IGP. And because in all reality, I still think at present time IGP is by far the, the place where you can show those things that I just mentioned. And, and for that you have to have that special dog. You have to have a really good understanding of training and appreciate all the nuances of, of who the dog is, what the training is and all that stuff. And yeah, I don't know. I, I, you know, I don't have a, any, anything against or for PSA or, or, you know, that we have a bunch of other protections. Sports here. PSA has stayed for quite some time and it's growing. There is no question about it. But I'm also curious why, why it's growing more. Like why people, why exactly this sport is growing and, and especially growing fast. So if there is something in IGP, we could do like, like, like in my opinion, for example, the IGP one, even they make, they try to make it like easier than IGP. Mm-hmm . Than IGP three. But actually they didn't, they made even it more difficult because you have to train like a frame. Yes. You have to train something outside of where you are going. Yeah. That's the, that's the frustrating. Or like IGP, or like, or like for example, I really hate that I have trained my dog to go down from walking. And then I have to do it from running in the IGP three where it's, it's easier to do it from running in my opinion. Correct. Correct. And then for example, um, all these retrieve parts, which were ridiculous, but it's not really made like easier. Uh, so I think that, um, that somehow we have failed to bring, uh, like, like it takes so long time to bring your dog to IGP one. Unless you, unless you just don't care, but then you don't have a good career in IGP if you just do it too quickly. And so, but I think also one thing is that I would say that world championships, definitely, they should be places where we should see, um, the best dogs and good judging. But I think they also should be, and not even world champs, but also national championships. They should be also places where we present the sport to other people, non-dog owners and other breed owners. Mm-hmm . And, and, and try to make it more like any other sport. So, so I have a bit mixed feelings about this thing that we should keep it as a sport that measures the qualities of the dog. But at the same time, we should think, how can we attract people and say, Hey, come there.

Even you don't know anything about it. We will tell you, we have speakers. We have, we will, we will, uh, explain to you. And it's a nice event. Like any event, you know, like, oh, there are a lot of events. I, I like to go car events or, or they were even like, we call it, I don't know, kind of hunting. Mm. Some kind of, um, I don't know how to say this in hunting event or something. And they, they had like all kinds of, um, food places and some candy shops and whatever there and some shooting, um, shows. And I'm like, Hey, maybe I should go there with my friend. Even I'm not going to start hunting, you know, but, uh, but because the event was so cool and, and, and, and there were a lot of things that it's just like a nice, like a nice happening. And I think that is something that I would like the championships in the Dock Falls to be also. Yeah. I, I mean, I agree that the, I think, um, there has to be, it's easy. Um, you know, just having, having young kids get involved and, and, you know, any, anybody that does the Instagrams and the Tik Toks and, and, and all this, you know, that that's like, there is no better way to promote and create interest than social media today. There's just no question about it. That's nothing to be argued. And I don't think even making the rules more, uh, um, easy for, for everybody can even come close to a nice social media promotion of what, what we do and why. And, and, and, and there is this other thing though. And that's kind of like, you know, like when I'm looking at the, the big sports, like take the professional basketball or soccer or whatever, you know, the rules are still the same. Even when they play as kids, they don't make it all. Well, let's make, uh, the rules are still the same. Maybe the goal is a little small. Maybe the ball is a little different size, but, but the rules and the objectives, they, they don't change. And IGP is one of those sports that was popular because was, well, first of all, you know, we didn't have a lot of sports. You know, we didn't have the, the type of social media that is now. So you, you know, it was a very good thing to do back in bunch of years ago. Now there is a lot of other opportunities that you can do any, any young person can do. So back then in those times, it was popular because there was no social media, but also it was not as difficult. Right? Like IGP evolved into something pretty close to impossible, like to, to accomplish the ideal. Like, this is like so many things need to line up. Like the whole Milky Way has to, not just few stars.

The whole thing has to line up for somebody to, to make it happen. Right? So it's not a, where we are with IGP in one hand, it's super cool. I very much appreciate it because it's just not for everybody. Just as we need a dog with a lot of talent, we need a handler with a lot of talent and a lot of, be willing to make the sacrifices that IGP really calls for. So PSA is different. Some other sports, and again, like you, of course you have PSA, different levels and so on, and then it can get quite complicated. But, but again, like when I'm thinking of IGP, it's not at where we are today. It's just not the sport for, oh, everybody can come and you're welcome. Let's go. So it is to that level. But then there is that other level that you know very well what it takes to, to be there, you know, to be in this top 50 in the world. And I think, and that, that I think it's okay. It should be like that. Right. And it's like, I think the hardest thing in IGP is for young people or, or, or young, not even young people, but young trainers, basically who have, or new beginners in this world. Is that if you want to bring your dog to do one day nice obedience, it takes years to build that level of healing and precision for it. You just can't do it within one month or two months. And if you go to compete then when your dog is losing eye contact and, and walking like forging or, or walking crooked or something, you will never fix that issue. Correct. Like, like, like, like, like, it's just impossible to fix it later. You have to build it really nicely. And it takes time. And the same is with tracking. You can bring your dog to IGP one so that he's running through the track with a high up, high, high nose. And, but you cannot fix it then later. So it takes time to make this kind of like, like how you take the food away from your track or how you teach your corners and how you, you know, all these things that takes so much, so much time. So I think, and the same would be in protection that if you want to bring your dog quickly to the competitions and you don't care about those guarding phases, what you mentioned before, then it doesn't matter. You can start to teach, teach the dog to be under control from very early beginning. But if you really want that your dog will never anticipate the call out from blind and he will never look at you or the judge in the guarding phases. And you have to first build the drive to bite before you can actually build a nice guarding after the out. So, so all, all these things, they take a lot of time.

And, and I, and maybe I think, I don't know so well about PSA or ring sport, but perhaps the first class, like at least in one year ring, you can bring the dog there pretty, pretty quickly. Mm-hmm. If the dog is generally a little bit talented, then it of course comes difficult when you want to go to a mondia ring three or something, but even you would bring your dog quicker to the first class. You don't ruin everything else. Right. You still maybe, if you then train two years more, you can reach nice results. But in IGP, if you do that, it's gone. The train went and you cannot get it back. Yeah. That's, that's so true. I think that is hard at least. Oh, what I think. And then a lot of people, they don't have that passion. They don't have that, um, time that they're like, Oh, I want to train, but it feels like forever before they can compete. Yeah. In this world where we live in at the moment, everybody wants to see results quickly. I mean, I'm one of the best person to tell, I'm very impatient person, but somehow I have learned to be patient in this sport. Right. It's maybe the only thing in my life I have been patient. Oh, I mean, IGP really, it's kind of like how, how somebody would do martial arts and do it more seriously. And, and it's not just about the martial arts is about just understanding so many different aspects of life and discipline and motivation and sacrifice. And, and, and, but that's why it's not, it really, it's not for everybody. That's my point. It's just not for everybody. And any, anyone that comes in, we should absolutely welcome and encourage. And I think there is now, finally, in the last couple of years, there's, this has become a little, we are more aware of this. And we're definitely in many different areas in the world. We are trying to, to create interest and excite young people and, and educate, which is absolutely amazing. But I wish, like, I wish that I'm this fly on the wall. And just listening to the working dog commission and how they present the rule change and how they converse about, okay, well, this is why we want that change. I am so curious how they come up with this. I've said this before. Judges are extremely important. Judges, camps and education. Judges are extremely important. So they are, they come to some agreement where we need to go. It's extremely important. But there shouldn't be a disconnect between competitors and judges. I, I really believe that we, there has to be somehow a competitors committee of some members of just competitors that also can give input.

Not necessarily change, but, but say, hey, you know this, like, why, why do we really need to put the dog on a seat and call them over the A-frame? Just, just as a question. Like, tell me. Not that I'm against it or I'm for, but I think we can do better if we work together, no? Yes, I, I really agree. I think there should be some kind of bridge between and connection between the people who make the decisions there, who are mostly, I think, judges and also the competitors. And, and, and, it's just, what is your opinion about this? Um, I have been so often thinking about it, that can a judge who has never owned himself and never trained himself a strong dog, like a really dominant and a strong dog in protection part. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, and vice versa. And, and vice versa. Can a judge who has never himself trained a dog in obedience to a high level, uh, and enthusiastically working in obedience, still precise. Can this person recognize what are exactly the challenges there and, and, and see through the things what you mentioned before that what are the natural talents in the dog and then what is trained for it? Yeah. Can they see those little nuances if they have never ever done it by themselves? Yeah. And I don't know, mean that the judge must be someone who has been, I mean, I, I'm talking about even that trying to train the dog there or even competing in the world championship level. Oh. It doesn't maybe require the thing that. No, no, this is very, very valid question. I, and I'm sure it's not you and me only the two people in the IGP world that think about this. I think there is even, even more growing, uh, uh, number of people that are talking and questioning about this and, and trying to find a solution. And I think, uh, who, I recently had a conversation on a podcast with Marcus Noitz and he brought up Hans Rudenauer. And Hans Rudenauer with, I mean, he was a very respected. He was like, probably there's few judges that I've got points throughout all the years that I've competed. And he always was, uh, um, he was the, the innovator. He was the, you know, he was the judge that all of a sudden he decided when the dog is barking to walk up and see if the dog's going to get shaky. That, I mean, this is like in the early nineties, he, you know, and, and Marcus was saying he, he wasn't necessarily some high competitive competitor, but what his strength was. He was always in the club, he was always seeing the training. He was always in presence of, of this kind of, you know, yeah.

I, I see this is a really dominant dog and it's very hard to control and how they go, but all this is a very, so he was exposed. And he was also in the world championships. I have seen him, uh, showing Lubenos Duke, for example, in the, in Wavre in, in, so he was competing there. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm talking more of, I'm talking more about, uh, uh, Hans Rudenauer and, and what Marcus Neusch was telling me about him. So he was not the person that has done much with a dog, but he was always exposed. He was always in training. He was always exposed. He always, he, he had the eye and the feeling of, okay, I, I, I know what I'm seeing because he has seen it. It's like, he didn't have to imagine it. Right. So, so talking about that, it's a, I, I don't want to get too fancy here, but you know, like when we talk about, let's say astrophysics or some crazy mathematical things that my brain just cannot even comprehend. But basically are things that you don't necessarily see, but in theory, you start to explore and you start to understand and, and you're looking at the sky and you don't see this little white things that are flickering, but you actually understand what's happening beyond that. And it doesn't mean that you have to fly on a rocket to, you know, to know that. I like to like, and I had this conversation with Yanni in the last conversation. I need to do another one with him. We're kind of waiting to see, but like, like my position on, on judges, does he have to have a Malinois? Like, has he ever trained a dog? If they never have, but they're doing better than the ones that have, then what? Right. So I'm personally very, I'm, I'm open to allow anybody that has very good understanding of what's about. And, and I would care less what they've done in their life, you know? Yes. That, that's where I am with this. Like I, I, I've gone back and forth. Like I remember myself throughout the years, oh, there's a German Shepherd judge. He wants to see a dog biting like this and hanging in and, but we have a Malinois. It's like, well, if you understand and if you judge correctly, hats off to you, respect. How many people are crazy as you and I? Right. I mean, there are a lot, but there are not so many. But, but you mentioned about like, like, for example, Malinois. And I think he has certainly seen dogs as a helper, as a police officer. I think he was a canine police, wasn't he? Or so. Or at least he has been working. Yeah, yeah. No, he still is. No, but that's the point. I, I, sorry to interrupt, but I, I'm not talking about, Marcos, Marcos just brought up Hans Rudenauer. In the conversation.

I'm not talking about, no, Marcos has all the, all the credentials to be a judge. There is no question. Yes. Yes. So, yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't know this. I actually don't know the other judge, what you mentioned. Yeah. But I'm thinking about. He was the, he was the director of judges on, for the, the SV for a, for a very long time. Yeah. Right before. I know the name. But I have never seen, I think. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I'm just 35 years old. Yeah. No, but that, that's kind of why I'm, I'm, you know, um, just bringing somebody, very, very influential, he, he really made a mark on, on what IGP, especially how to evaluate protection without having the, without having the, the, the, being Marcos Noits or being Mia Skogster's or being, yeah, yeah, yeah. Knut Fuchs or so on, you know? Yeah. Sorry. I'm like, I somehow completely missed this because of my bad English or I didn't recognize the word before somehow. Yeah. So, um, yeah, um, there can be exceptions though. They say always that the exceptions, uh, they make the rules kind of, or, or, I don't know how to say that, but, but, but somehow often I think that, that people must have seen them at least somewhere. They must have been seeing the strong dogs as, as a handler or as a helper or, or, or, or, or they must have seen them in their club and they must have seen the difference between them and the, the, the, the, the lesser talented, uh, uh, dogs. No, they have to have the education and they have to have the talent just like with the dog. Right. Yeah. And the same would be also in obedience that maybe not all, I know some actually really, really good judges in obedience though, who maybe have never shown themselves an excellent obedience in the competition with their dogs. Yeah. Yeah. That's the point. But they have still been competing though. Um, so, but I have a little more doubts. I think, um, if the judge has not made any, like, like, haven't been training dogs for 30 years or, but, but like, like you said, there can be exceptions. They may not, some can still be good. Yeah. And of course in the end, go, go, go. Sorry. Yeah. No, no, no. Just in the end, it only matters how good job you do as a judge. Yes. So, so it, it really doesn't matter how you are as a handler. And we also may have handlers who wouldn't make good, who wouldn't make good as judges. Even they would be brilliant, uh, handlers. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I'm like, I, I would be afraid to judge a big event personally for, for reasons you actually, you are, I mean, you know me, like I can, I can miss two exercises just cause my brain's gonna just go somewhere else.

You know, it doesn't matter how much I know. It doesn't matter what I've accomplished. I just don't have that. Well, or maybe I think that I don't have, I don't know, but, but it takes that. There is a certain skill of staying focused for fucking four days. Yes. And it's hard for sure. It's much easier when we are in the podium, not only podium, in the, in the stand, in the stage, just watching. And, and we can, when, when, when there is one dog we are really focused on, then we realize, okay, the next dog we are not so interested in. So we can talk a little bit, something we can take some coffee or, or. Yes. drinks and, and, and, and, and relax our brains. And then we can focus again. But the judges, they have to be focused on every single moment. And I think that even before the best of them, there must come some moments that they just don't see. Yes. It is impossible, I think. But, but they can see much more than for example, what I could see if I would be a judge. I could, I could, I think I would easily also lose some complete exercise. No, I mean, it is a, it has happened, happened to me. Yes. In my apprentice judging, you know, I'm like, I forgot the dog who was laid down in the long down. I'm like, I have no clue what he was doing there. Hey, what are you doing? What are you waiting for? Excellent. Yeah. One, one good thing is about having this kind of podcast and like, like just, just having the opportunity to talk about it. And hopefully everybody, I don't know, like we, we all need to try to, to, we have to have our opinion. We also have to be careful and listen to what the opinions that are there that we don't necessarily think they're right. But maybe we need to at least take time to, to, to listen and see if we can find some reason in them. And I think a big problem, man, we, me and Yanni, when we were talking about this, I, I, I brought again the ring sport. And it's like, you can have a judge and they can start giving points and you get, okay, you've got 91. In a big world championship, even though I, I don't remember when that happened, but it decided that, oh, it's a world championship. Everybody should know what we are here for. So let's not waste time about giving this long critiques. Let's just give the points. I think that was a mistake. Especially if, especially that we're trying to evolve maybe, and we're trying to get better. And even if not, if I get 89 points, I want to know. I think everybody wants to know. And then I can agree and disagree, but at least I have a critique and I know, okay, this is what that judge didn't like.

And I can, then, then it's up to me to decide to, to change something or not change something in my training, but, but to, just to give a, okay, 91. And we said in five languages, who cares? Like instead of saying in my languages, like, now in ring sport is super cool because you go through the routine. The judge writes everything. And about five minutes later, the judge's sheet is posted on the fence. Exercise, but exercise. How many points were taken and what, what really, I mean, like complete breakdown of everything. How is it possible in IGP? How is it possible in IGP? Because I remember those years when I was getting that evaluation, even in the World Championships, I knew where the points were taken from me and where they were given to me. So why did it have to change? Why it was, I mean, it was never super long, but I remember really well, where did those points were taken? Yes. Yes. I think, I mean, my solution, my suggestion is instead of trying to see how much bigger the event can be this year compared to next year, or they had 120, let's have 140 people this year. Mm-hmm . Let's not bring all the, uh, alternates, all the reserves. Let's not bring, let's have a real competition. This is one, and I, and I know many people wouldn't agree with me, but you know, when I've watched the tzatzit, it's great. Mm-hmm . It's, it's absolutely cool thing because you have, it's very motivational for, for a lot of people to, to be able to just go and compete against some really top names head on. Mm-hmm . But at the same time you have, uh, um, you know, endless performances that for me, there is not much to watch. If, if it's a world championship, we can, if we cut down the number instead of trying to make more, uh, uh, participation, but come down the number and allow for the judges to actually, hey, okay. That's your opinion, but let me like, explain to me how you're breaking down these points. Like that, that's, I think everybody wants that. And if we can make it with 140 dogs, I think that's okay. But if we cannot, if we, if we have to decide between a big number of entries versus top entries with critique. Yes. I would always go with the top entries with critique because that will teach the competitors that are competing, but that will teach the rest of the IGP world community. what are the new or what, what are we, what do I need to train for if I don't know? Mm-hmm . Because. Here is a world championship. Here is a, uh, somebody that has qualified, that has a good reason to be there. He's not a, uh, oh, let's just get you in. And there is a critique and it's broken down.

I think it, it's a must have. Yeah. And I think it's so important when we have, for example, two top dogs who both got, let's say 89 points or 90 points in obedience. Um, but they, they get it for completely different reasons. It, it would be very important, for example, when the judge tells that this dog handler gave, for example, body help. Yes. Let's say he, he made a little bit helping in the seat or down or stand. And, and then, and, and thus, uh, even the dog did like really correct work and it looked better than the other dog who got the same points, uh, with a slower sit and slower down and slower stand. But that handler didn't help the dog, for example. And so this kind of minor important things would be important to hear because then, first of all, this handler who lost the points, uh, or who got like the same points with those hand handler helps. And then he would, or she would understand that. Okay. If I fix those things next year, I can make perhaps excellent and I can make more, you know, uh, when I, um, you know, uh, clean my handling, for example. Uh, and then also the audience understands better that why this other dog got these points or the other dog, um, is, is, uh, very, very fast. But the creep for the dumbbell isn't that good. Uh, or the rock is a little bit under pressure, um, or showing a little bit sub sub high quality sub sub misive behavior or whatever suppression, uh, in front of the handler or in the right finishing or something. And the other dog, for example, can be super, super happy, but he is all the time a bit crooked in every position or something. But this would be important to understand that there can be, um, different reasons. Um, different reasons and sometimes what looks better to the audience doesn't, uh, automatically mean that he gets more points because of other reasons. Yeah. That, I mean, this, uh, this is beautiful, uh, uh, uh, point you're bringing up because, uh, uh, um, yeah, I, I don't need to even repeat all that. Cause. You know, like, I mean, I mean, let's say, let's take the dumbbell. You can have a dog that goes, you know, out of 10 goes with level seven speed. Yes. But he goes, he picks up and he brings and he makes good presentation and he, he, he's really like, Hey, this is, I understand what I'm doing. And there is the other dog that is maybe super fast, like almost, you know, it's almost unnaturally fast where he grabs the dumbbell, but it's almost like in this panic and kind of has to take few steps to, to return. And, and as you say, they both have different points to be taken off.

But when that is explained, then the crowd and everybody that trains can make a decision. Okay. The judge is watching for this and for this. Wow. Wow. Who is my dog? And how can I make the most points with my dog? Considering that both can, can lead to mistake, to, to deductions. Right. And that's where the education. And that's where the education with, and, and I'm, I'm very much against a judge starting to give a mini seminar and teach you how to teach a retrieve. But they have to explain where they do the points. Right. Mm-hmm. And, and also, like you mentioned, for example, this, that one dog can do like a very solid work. He knows his job, but for example, he is lacking the natural drive. You know that, that this dog is high level trained, but this was the best what this dog handler was able to get out of the dog. You know that maybe this dog is not even able to make it faster and more powerfully. Sometimes it's fast enough to get excellent. Sometimes it's maybe not fast enough. Not, not, I wouldn't use the word fast. I would use that word enthusiastic or, or powerful or something like this that we can really see the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the natural drive. Motivation. Yeah. Motivation. Motivation. That the dog is motivated to do it naturally. And then we can see sometimes that, okay, the dog is doing it super fast, but even unnaturally fast, it's maybe not even needed for, for the excellent. I mean, it, the speed can be perfect, but then there are other mistakes and sometimes there are no other mistakes, but you can see a little bit like some kind of where the, where the motivation is coming from. Is it coming from the drive or is it coming from the pressure or where it's coming from? And, and, and sometimes if it's really, really well trained, you can't perhaps see that, but sometimes you do see that. And then also we can affect the points. So, so I think there are so many different ways to actually take points away in a championship level that it would be super important for the people, for the crowd, for the dog handler himself and herself to know where the judge took them away. Why he took them away and it can educate everyone. And then the crowd and the dog handler himself, I think they are much more satisfied because then they can say, Oh, I also actually noticed that. Or they can watch it later from their cameras, from the, from the videos or somewhere that actually the judge was right. That's what actually happened. And when they compare it to the other dog.

And then also it helps the people to understand if the judging is unfair, because sometimes it can also be that. A hundred percent. Yes. I mean, that's the, the nature of the sport and yeah. And sometimes there will be the favoritism and I mean, there is, you know, we are all humans. There is, there is all, all this comes in place. Or preferences. So that some judges just generally like some kind of type of dog more. Exactly. Exactly. Even if it's not even unfairness or something, but they just. Yes. But we need to know it. Like we, we, we absolutely cannot go. Like there is two things that I am very frustrated about today with, with what we do. One is we cannot have any more competitions without videos. Like this just cannot be like, you know, like we, we gotta be able to, to, if something is like talking about Italy, for example, you know, like we, we gotta be able to go back and watch videos today. Like right now, as we are having conversation, you know, how we, we would go back and have drinks and, and we go on working dog and whatever. And we just watch them. And we discuss them. This, this is a must. We, we, we, we cannot, like if some, if, if any country, any club decides to have, to host a competition, one of the main requirements in my world is you have to promise that this is recorded and we can go back and watch it. I don't care on what platform, but if you cannot do that, they should not grant the competition to that country. I think it's super important. I agree. It should be recorded. And also, well, that's another thing, of course, than recording, but it's just a minor thing. And it may be, it's my personal preference, but I'm also thinking that how it's possible. We have world championships where we don't have like, like online scoring, but that it comes like automatically immediately from the tracking, from obedience, from protection to online, because we have been able to do this in Finland the last 20 years, almost, almost 20 years. I think we had, I think, we had, I think there will be like no national championships organized where we wouldn't have like, result service that functions. And, and it means that when the judge says the tracking points, there is a secretary who immediately puts it online. And there it is. Everybody can see it. Not only the people in the stadium can see it, but also people at home. Yes. They can get it. It's a real thing. I understand that recording is even more important so we can evaluate everything later, but, but this is something that also kills me that we have to, we don't know even who is coming to the field in the world championships.

Right. We don't know who is coming next because we don't have this kind of working online system or we don't get any information. Then in the, in the late evening, we know what happened 8.30 in the morning in tracking field. Yes. And what are the, what, what, what, what is the pressure for that competitor? Like what are they fighting for? Is it half a point? Is it 10 points? And yeah, it makes it so much more interesting for everybody. Yes. Yes. And it's not so difficult to get those kinds of systems. There are a lot of things available like this. When you just, you can even outsource it. They don't have to do it by themselves if they don't know how to do or, or so. And then I think the, the fourth thing, which is really great when you mentioned about Sassit, I have never been in any Sassit competition. I haven't been even watching them. I have basically just heard about it. And I have seen some videos in social media where they had a speaker who was all the time commentator. Yes. Who was explaining to the audience what was happening on the field. For example, that, Hey, now, um, this dog, now, now he goes, uh, you know, to the grip, let's say, now the grip looks really nice. Or maybe here the dog is a little bit reacting when the handler is coming. So he may lose, but you know, so just explaining something like this. So if you have a commentator who understands the sport, it actually can explain things, uh, that even people who come to see first time in their whole life, this sport, they understand what's happening on the field. And then they say, Oh, okay. This dog must be really like, like now we can expect like higher points because like commentators in the television. No, absolutely. So when we go some, and, and, and somebody. Skating or horse riding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That, that in my opinion would create more interest than lowering and making the IGP one so confusing. Create, having, having a good announcer can create so much more interest because when you have this kind of, uh, uh, somebody that, that it's. Running you through the routines within two or three performances, even if you don't know anything, you start to pick up on things and you're like, Oh, I. Let me see if that dog can do it like this because that's important because now I know. It's an easy thing. Yes. And I think it's very cool. And it's really, it's the same. Like when I was kid and I watched ice hockey, uh, world championships, uh, from the television. And I know nothing about Isaac. I can't even skate myself. But when I heard the commentator was super funny, he made some jokes and he explained some things.

He always uses some really cool ways to express something. And he's still the commentator after 30 years, you know, uh, and, um, and I still love to watch ice hockey world championships because he's the commentator. However, so he made it, he used the words that we can understand. He explained, uh, some rules of the ice hockey that, Hey, here, the book must come over this line first before the, any player of that team can enter, you know, on the, uh, you know, or something like this. And so I was like, Hey, cool. I learned today something about ice hockey. And then I was really proud of explaining this to my mother or something. So, so, so I think it also gives the, uh, viewer this kind of feeling that, Hey, I'm really proud of explaining this to my mother or something. And I think it also gives the, uh, viewer this kind of feeling that, Hey, I know something about this sport and it makes it much more interesting to watch it again. And, and, and if I will just keep on watching and why did they, why did they give a penalty now for the other team? Or why did they bring the book back there? Why do they have to start all over again? And I wouldn't have any idea what's going to happen, but because somebody explaining it, then, then, you know, it, it makes much more sense. Um, no, a hundred percent. You, they get you like a good commentator, get you involved, get you sucked in. And, and all of a sudden you're participating that that's the whole, it is brilliant. It's brilliant. It's entertainment also. And I think, um, and I think that is one thing that we are lacking a little bit, this kind of entertainment. We don't understand what makes the sport interesting. It's, it's these events. I mean, the dog training, when we go to the field, then we have to love to train our dogs and get excited when our dogs are learning and growing, growing with us. But when we think about competitions, uh, where we show to the whole world, what our sport is about, that should be really entertaining event. There should be nice music. There should be like, um, uh, funny and exciting and inspiring commentator. And there should be some good food and, and nice drinks and, and, and something for the kids and something to bring the families. And so this is something how it should be. There should be some cool shows, even if it's a big event, something about the military dogs or something when they are landing with a helicopter or something. I know we used to do that all the time. That was, uh, in the nineties, that was, uh, all the time. That was super cool to see. Yes. Yes.

I was nine, I was 19 years old when I went to watch my first world championships. I wasn't competing, but I remember that they had some helicopter landing and I really wanted to see this show. They, they, they, they were coming down with a rope with a dog and they, they let it attack to some, uh, guy. And that was something super cool because I had a show line dog at this moment. My dog would have never done that. He would be so afraid of this helicopter even, but it was really, really cool to see. And I think it's also a very good publicity to the military and military dogs. It's also good for them to show people this. And so, and yeah, I mean, even that there is a police car, I mean, think about all the kids, you know, um, they, they come to see when they, you know, the car is coming and, and, and you, you also think that you want to be like, uh, maybe one day they're not, not as a, as a, as a, as a bad person, but it would be cool to see the police car. So all kinds of things like this, they can, they can make this, this event so much more cooler. Yeah. I think we got, they are, they are connected to our sport. I think we got scared somehow. And when I'm saying we, I actually think more of Europe, we got, we, we, we, yes, we kept, oh, well, there is a little pressure. Okay. We're going to bend down a little. We're going to, and then they kept pushing, which is normal. They always will keep pushing and we keep bending down and keep bending down instead of standing up and saying, Hey, this is what we do. And this is why we do it. There's actually a very good reasons, many reasons why we're doing this, you know? And I, I like where, I mean, Europe is definitely making very serious attempts to, to come back and, and, and educate about the sport. One of the things that comes. And, and I know that I have a solution for Europe. Europe is in such difficult position, the IGP trainers in Europe, that there is the paranoia of who's watching me and how can I explain that the, what I'm doing is okay. When this has been told to everybody that this is a, a very barbaric and very cruel and very whatever approach to training and there are better ways. And not even IGPs, even everyone who actually buys a working dog. Right. And wants to live in the harmony with their dogs. And then they have been told that they should never say no. They should never correct the dog, even from the leash. They should never do that. And it just, it's just going to happen one day that if you don't do it, your dog will do that. Right.

He will get himself a situation where you should be doing something and you should set some boundaries for the dog. But this is craziness. And now I think it is interesting that now maybe even some family dog owners in Europe have been rising a little bit for this and understanding that they can say, they can even say it better than the IGP trainers that, hey, I have to sometimes correct my dog. It's craziness if I can't say, you know, if I can't do anything. Yes. But, but it's a, but you are right that we are very suppressed about talking about it. We cannot talk it. We can't use the real names for real things. We have to go around it. We have to be super careful that somebody doesn't turn it against us and, and harm us and, and make us looking like we are the worst people of this earth. And, and, and, and I think it's so interesting that people can talk about when they talk about child education. And they can, they can even have nowadays a lot of memes and, I don't know if you say memes or something, how you pronounce it in English. But as you know, my pronunciation, it's bad. But they can have a lot of funny videos about them or posts in social media or reels or Tik Tok video or something like about the bad mamas that sometimes you must shout to your kids or something, but you can't do this with dogs because it's, it's not even allowed to choke about it. I, I, I wish I have an answer to this. Like my, my, cause again, like, I mean, I live in a, I'm still, I, I, it's, I mean, we're extremely fortunate that we still do what we do. Have the free, in, in, in the States, you know? And do, yeah. Yes. And thinking about how this can, how we can start to reverse it. It has, it has to be reversed, right? It cannot be a sudden, some, we cannot just have a revolution, but, but we, like, when I say we, I'm talking about all, all my friends in Europe. We, that we, we, we have to start to show some glimpses of real training and being able to explain it and, and being comfortable with explaining it to the point where, you know how, when, when you think how the whole force free movement escalated, it's little by little by little by little by little. And all of a sudden we are where we are today. I think we can reverse it in exactly the same way, but we, we have to have the courage to start to show something instead of all, only the, the beautiful stuff. We have to face it and we have to be able to stand up and say, you know what, like, I, I don't have exactly the formula, but we have to start to push back on this.

We cannot, the more we keep submitting to them, that ideology, protection sports will not exist very quickly. I mean, we are at the point where it's not going to be. And, but it's like, it would be the same, like, if you are living in the country where let's say, smoking marijuana is forbidden by law. Right. It's just impossible to tell that, you know, every now and then I'm smoking a little bit pot. Right. It's just like, it's just like, it's just like possible. Even it would be allowed in some other country. And I, and I'm talking about like, I'm not smoking marijuana as you know. I, I, I do. It's not good. I do. I'm not afraid to say. But I don't, I don't. And it is just not as we all know very well, but. No, no, I, I, I, it's true. I will tell you an example, like, and now because of my daughter, she, she always kind of keeps me updated. What's up in Germany and they legalize now marijuana. They still don't know exactly how we're going to, they're going to do things. Yep. But I can tell you even, even last year, I was flying to Europe or back. I don't remember where. And I had a little vaporizer that was empty. And they, the, in Frankfurt, they took it out and they left me a note in my suitcase that this is not allowed. But, again, if the community continues to persist and educate, I think there is a way out of this. But we have to, we have to become active and do something about it. We cannot just submit and, and, and to, to their craziness. They will never stop. Yeah. We know that. Yeah. And I think this is so important that at least in those countries where it is like, where things are legal still, that in those countries, you can have, you should have like discussion about it. You should make some scientific researches about it and educate people. I think the scientific research is also a very interesting part. Do you know, or, or can you talk about like some latest scientific researches about it? Yeah. Like if there are some things. Yeah. I mean, so, so, I mean, you, you, you were here when we were doing one study. Mm-hmm. And it turned out to be, so, so for the people that don't know, I, I should give a little history. Yeah. Um, we decided to compare electric color against all force free approach to stopping a dog from chasing something. And we, it is documented, it's on videos and it's on paper. We have documented it, that electric color was extremely effective.

It did not have any of those side effects that the force free ideology wants you to believe that they, you know, the dog shit themselves and they don't want to even walk on the field or any of these things were just not happening. We have all that. Yeah. And at the same time, the people that made the pop, the, the study, if they publicly say, well, you know what, all these studies and all these things that were done in the early 2000 that are saying all these horrible things are not necessarily true. I mean, they, they will, their colleagues will absolutely probably just. Cancel them. Jump on. Yes. Yes. We are in a point where the study that I, I was part of, it will come out. Mm-hmm. Yes. It was, I mean, it's already a year and a half or, or I don't know, close to that. I'm kind of giving them a little more time if they do it or they don't do it. If they don't do it, I will make the, the findings public because it's, you know, we, we have all the, you know, we, we have all the records and we have all the videos and everything. And sooner or later it will become available. I'm hoping that this is. Yeah. that's going to be very, very, very near to that. And that's going to help us tremendously as a community. Yeah. Um, I am in the process also of doing a whole other series of studies on, on the effects of electric color. Interesting. Yeah. One thing that we as a community have to do, which is very difficult for various of reasons, is that if I am holding a remote control for electric color and this guy's holding another one, that doesn't mean that we will do the same thing. And you can do it intelligently or you can fuck it up. But we know that this can happen with any kind of training. You can be, you can call yourself force free and then you can just, And you can be so forceful for the dog. Yes. You can totally lose your mind and start screaming and the dog is all like freaking just so concerned and stressed out because of this person that is force free, that is just over the top angry about their dog. And we have to find a way to, it is a very hard one to say, Hey, you know, this type of training is not what we endorse. This is not good training, but that doesn't mean just because you don't know how to use a blow dryer and you're going to go in a bathtub with it. That doesn't mean we just ban blow dryers all of a sudden. Right? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Or, or so, you know, you know, there can be so many ways to suppress the dog. Um, it, it's not needed to be any tool, uh, obviously. Uh, and, and, and one thing, but I find very interesting is a lot of, um, dog dogs that have been trained force free.

Um, when the handlers have avoided all kinds of, uh, um, how to say errors or, or, or, or guidance or feedback with their dogs. I think that a lot of those dogs are so much more stressed when then one thing, one moment, once in their life goes wrong. They don't have that relationship with their handler. They don't trust their handler, uh, in, in many situations that could have been taught out of the good relationship. When the handler is guiding the dog and giving feedback, what is not correct, what is correct. And the dogs can also bounce back so quickly because they have learned it from early beginning, like with humans, that they also learn to handle the, um, adversities when they learn it from, from young age. Right. And, and then, and it is fair for them and not so that they once come to adults and then suddenly the life is hard and nobody pays their living and they have to start to work or something. And, um, and they cannot even get a job because they just like, like somebody. Misbehave all the time. Yeah. Or freeze or get depressed about things. The boss is like, Hey, you're not doing your job. And they're like, Oh, it's like, yeah. Why he's angry with me? Why he shouts to me? Why he's not smiling all the time. Even I just do my best. Even I do it a bit, stop away or something. And, um, and so I think it's also like, so a lot of things say it's like force free training means nothing. How positive you actually are. You are maybe even able to be funny for your dog. You are not maybe even able to show good emotions. You might be, but it's not synonym for a good dog trainer or, or a fair person or, or anyone who can create a good relationship with the dog. It's so much about the body language and emotions and timing and everything. And then also the same is if you are, um, how you call it balance trainer or, or how, how, how is the word in English? Yeah. Yeah. Um, so it's same there. You can be really, really good or you can be not good. And, and, and they are like thousands of different possibilities to do it right or wrong. Um, and so, and, and I think this is something that I would really, really love to see in the future that we take away this kind of, um, um, like, like that, that some tool or some way of training is like absolutely good or absolutely bad because every single way, you know, can both. Yeah. But it's this, it is interesting that if you can start to talk about those things and I'm waiting for a lot of studies to come out, uh, to prove that, that we, we also have some, uh, that it's not harmful for the dogs to use aversives. Yeah.

Sometimes when it's needed, um, when you do it correctly. Yeah. Um, and, and it can be more effective. It can be much more faster. It can be much more better for the dog. It can be less stressful and so on. So it, it, it just should be, we should be able to talk about it. I, I'm really wondering in the name of science that how it's possible. We live 2024 and, uh, and still, um, we cannot talk about all things. We are kind of, uh, like, like, like, like we have taboos, like, like, uh, like, like in the time of, uh, I dunno, some, some middle age or something dark ages about the witch hunt and everything. It sometimes speaks a bit like this. No, you're, it's very true. That's very true. That's very true. Yeah. So, um, but we have to, we like, holy book, we have to start opening that door and starting to educate. And yeah. I wish I have, I have an answer, an answer how to do it in Europe because I can imagine if any dog trainer in Europe now makes a video. And the dog has a prone collar on, and it's not doing any training. It just has a prone collar on and it's off leash running. They will get, I mean, depending on the country, there's going to be all sorts of different things that will happen to that person. But, but at the same time, we have to dare as a community to start educating and, and it has to come from everywhere. It has to come, including from, from the working dog commission, all the way down to competitors. We, we have to have a plan how to reverse this. Of course. Um, like, uh, like in my country, in order if, if somebody would have, uh, guts to do something like that, just even putting it on in Finland, for example, it is forbidden to even purchase it or have it in your hand. Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . And not even putting it to your dog. So it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's against the law. Right. So, I mean, the, the funny thing is I was just filming my dog walking in Helsinki city in our capital without leash. And it is absolutely forbidden in the law and in the, the rules of that city that you can have a dog there without leash. And I had my dog like all the time walking next to me in a transport command. Yeah. And, um, and I published that video in the social media and it got like, it was watched like millions times. And it went like viral in, in our little, little country. And I was actually surprised that none of those false free trainers never, um, send it to the police. Mm-hmm . And demanded that I must get punished. Mm-hmm . Because actually that was against the law. What I was doing. Yeah.

Maybe, maybe the answer is to not to show, but to at least probably the most reasonable way to start reversing things is to start talking about it. And, and, and start talking about it, not as an individual, but, but like organized and literally talking about in terms of education is like, no, like whatever you're saying that it's your science. It's, it's something is not matching something you're not willing to discuss. And, and I think this is the, the way to, to start. And of course, hopefully, I'm hoping that once we get bunch of studies out here, you, we will give that ammunition to, to kind of have something, you know. Yeah. We need a proof. We need to prove that somewhere else somebody has done these studies and found out that actually some tools when they have been used right way could be held. Yeah. Because obviously we cannot prove them that they could be helpful here because we can put them on to our dogs. Exactly. Exactly. And we even have to avoid that. But like I said, we have had, I have seen dog handlers and dog owners, and I don't even talk about IGP people. I talk about people who have bought a working dog and then they have found themselves in a trouble where the dog has been aggressive towards other dogs or, or they have been not coming. Uh, when they call them, they have been hunting the years or, or, or, you know, like doing behaviors or hunting cars or chasing cars, how you say, chasing cars, chasing animals. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, and then they, and their dogs have been so frustrated and so high in drive already. And, and the mistake already has happened. And I'm like, I'm so sorry. I really don't help you. I know that we could help you if we could use tools. Yes. But I'm not going to help you because I will not take money from you. Uh, if I can't help you, if I, I will not, I will not solve this problem by trying to give your dog a sausage or I try to give him a bite, bite pillow or, or play with him. Um, because I know that your dog is already so motivated to do something else that they're the only way to fix that issue would be to correct that behavior and then start to reward the dog, you know, like, you know, like stop that behavior first. Oh, and then, um, and then, so I cannot help them. So I don't take them as a, as a client because I can't help them with those methods that I'm allowed to use. And I don't even have courage to say that maybe we could fix this issue with those forbidden tools. Um, because I don't know whether this person, um, how he reacts on that. Maybe he can say, oh, I, I prefer keep this problem.

And my dog will be living in the stress the next five years, but I just don't want to fix that. I prefer go to somebody who trains positive only force free. And I pay, uh, every time 100 Euro, but nothing will get fixed. But at least I tried my best and I, I feel I'm a better person. Maybe his, uh, attitude is this, and I don't want to take that risk. Even I don't even want to say it aloud that there would be maybe alternative way to fix it within one week. But I don't just fix it because it is forbidden. That's the crazy, the crazy place you're in. Like, I don't know, like if I'm anywhere in Europe, I don't, I have no idea how I would be. I mean, I think, I don't know. Like I really don't know. I have said, I have said a few times that maybe I have said that unfortunately I don't have here a method that would work with your dog effectively. But maybe I know that they can fix that kind of problem. Maybe in another country. So maybe if you would live now in USA, I would say, go to that trainer and that trainer is a good trainer. He knows how to, you know, fix this kind of problems and he could help you or she could help you. But that is what I have been actually saying. And then I have been saying, you can try, you can go to that trainer who trains force free and try if they can help you and your dog. But unfortunately I can't. And I have been several times told we have already been there. And that's why we came to you if you could help. And I'm like, I'm so sorry, but it just, I can't do that. Right. And it's understandable. I mean, I mean, totally understandable. You lose your career, you lose everything you want to do. Everything. Absolutely. Everything. One of like one of the and I want to move on to other conversations that I want to talk about. But but one of the things that at least I think Europeans can help. is those other countries that are. They have this big question mark and they're like, well, Germany, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, they all banned it. So we should ban it because we have to give support. Yeah, we have to give support to these countries at least and tell them, hey, fight, fight for it. Don't give it up. It's not cool to give it up. Don't don't be. Oh, we want to look cool because the Germans and the Austrians are doing it this way. So they must know like they they need a lot of people. I feel that they need to hear from from from people from Europe that it's like, hey, fight for your rights. Don't don't think that what we are doing, we're doing it because it's cool. We just got stuck here and we're trying to reverse it. You don't need to do that.

Yeah. Or thinking that because they are able to do it in Finland so nicely. Why couldn't we do that? But the fact is we don't do it so nicely. Right. And the interesting thing is that I was reading our, how you call this kind of magazine, not magazine, but newspapers. There was an interview of one veterinarian and she had given interview and she was basically like cited there as a as a presenting the biggest veterinarian clinic called Evidencia in Finland. And she didn't, she wasn't like, she was only talking about herself. So she didn't really, the vet clinic made it very clear that that wasn't the official opinion or something like this after. But she said it what every vet, what I have been talking here with, like I have been talking with so many of them. And they said the situation has like, like the veterinarians work has become so much harder in the recent years, in the last 10 years, even 20 years ago, they have so much more badly behaving dogs. They cannot treat them. They cannot vaccinate them. They cannot actually help those dogs because they are so badly behaving dogs. For example, I heard stories where the veterinarian couldn't even do the eye check because the owner was not able to put the eye drop to the dog's eyes. And then it took like, you know, half an hour. The dog is not able to sit and, and, and the handler was like, oh, can't you just, I want to go to that kind of clinic where they give more time for my dog. And you know, that kind of stuff happens. And then, then, then there are much more worse things like, like much more worse things happening. And they have also put a lot of pressure for the veterinarians that they cannot treat dogs against dogs will. Yes. Yes. Yes. You know, but at the same time, we are allowed to go with our children and give them vaccinations. I mean, I bring my kid there and I just hold him tightly. He doesn't want to have that needle and that's fine. But then we can't do it for the dog. And we actually don't even have to do it for the dog. If you have a good relationship, we don't, we don't have to force it. But, but it means we have told to our dogs to trust on us and they know the feedback system, you know. Right. And when it comes to, oh, let's give a rabies vaccination. There all of a sudden there is no consent. It's like not too bad. We are doing the rabies vaccination. Right. But so anyway, but it was interesting that the veterinarians in my country have been speaking up and they have been telling now at least couple of them even publicly that the situation has come worse and we can see it in the street.

Like I would say when I was in the US one month, I must say that the culture there was clearly different. People were admiring when my dog was under control, when I was walking on the streets and they were smiling. They, they, they appreciated my well-trained dog and, um, and I didn't see so many dogs who were barking on the leash, but here they do like 95% of dogs minimum. When I walk with my dog, if I see another dog coming, I'm, I'm almost 95% sure that this dog also will start barking towards us and pulling and being in horrible stress. And I have to be, and it will stress me. It will stress my dog. Even my dog wouldn't react on that. But of course, emotions are going to touch us. So I have to be a bit stressed that if he can handle the dog, you know, this is happening. Even they have small dogs, middle sized dogs, big dogs, all of them, mostly they are aggressive. And another really kind of horrible side of the, the whole for threes when, when it starts to not bring the results that they need. They start to point the finger at the owner and it's like, no, you're not doing it right. No, you need to give it more time. No, you need to whatever. And, and they make that person feel like shit. And they're actually trying to do everything they're telling them, but it, because it's not working, they are not doing it the way, you know, it's like, come on, come on. Like sometimes you, you have to resolve a problem right now. You don't have two years. You don't have five years. Who cares about like the dog is already five, eight years old. He's half like there is just, no, you didn't fix anything. But anyway, I think, yeah, yeah. Let's go, let's go back to, IJC because there was after the FMBB, there was a lot going on. And then I think that's the way that everybody knows. I have my take on it. I'll, I'll definitely share it. I know from the, some of the comments that you made was one was about the judging, how we cannot have one judge. And I, I really believe that one judge is just not fair simply because thinking of myself, like I, I totally can miss sometimes something. And it's not fair to miss something when, when I understand what it takes to train and perform, the judge misses it and evaluates it incorrectly. But at the same time, it's human nature. And I can see how somebody can totally space out and, and completely make a big mistake, which is affects everything that that trainer, it is really, really hard. And I wouldn't say it's not acceptable because again, there is human nature. So I, I am really with you. And a lot of the people that say we, we cannot have one judge.

I agree to that. I also agree. Not that I agree, but I have been part of this and you've competed and you've been part of this to where you have five judges and a supervisor. And somehow the score still gets twisted and it still gets wrong. And I don't want to say why, but the truth is that it does. So my, my thing with the judging, and I'm taking this from Marcus Noint too, from the conversation. I, I, I, like, I am not afraid to change my mind at any time if something makes sense. And one of the things that he said to me when we had the podcast was the judges actually should talk to each other. And the reason for that is when one judge misses something, Miss something. Miss something. Then the other one can say. He can say. And I think the spectators is a crowd. They are almost want to put the judges against each other. If they are separated and it's like, ha ha. He gave 70 points and he gave 89 points. What happened? Well, that wouldn't happen if they honestly can communicate and say, hey, you did. I mean, the dog missed a sit and you, you haven't even acknowledged it in your score. Oh, I think that's a cool thing. Now, it will be bad if the two judges are trying to find some common ground and the one gets influenced by the other. Like my, my opinion today, and this again, this can change tomorrow. But today, my opinion is four judges and supervisors make no difference. They can influence. We have quite a few competitions where things have went very wrong. But two judges, should they do separate scores so everybody can be, so we can put the judges against each other. And when we put the judges against each other, now we have that other thing about the judges competing against each other who sees more. Oh, I see a new don't. And now the scores become ridiculously out of context, right? Yeah. So, so where do you stand on this? I know you've put some thinking on this. I agree with you. I mean, many of these, they will be not the perfect system. The system that they will be like every one of those systems, whatever we will choose, has the problem. So, so, so in, in, in those situations where the Chattis can talk with each others, that is clear that then they can also talk about this. In case the other one missed something, then it's really, really good that they can say, hey, I saw that, for example, the dog was stiff in the ground in the long down or something or, or, or just something that when the other one was, for example, writing something down, then something happened. Yes. Okay.

So, so there are possibilities that exactly then the handler does something, what is not allowed, for example, prepares the dog or, or something. But then, then on the other way around, I think, when you talk about this situation that there are five judges and still the wrongs are twisted. Still the points are twisted and somehow wrong. And, and, and, and this can be, I think, now we come for the important part that, that, that, that when we are choosing the judges, who will be the supervisor and how the supervisor is affecting the other judges, for example, or, or how we select the judges basically there. And I think that is the one thing that we have to start to be a little bit more clear that there is not only one person who dominates even the judging process, who will be the judges who are selected to judge. There should be more variation of the judges that, that, that, that, how to say, first of all, we have to select judges who are very experienced ones. And each one of them have a really good self-esteem and confidence, and they are not letting or needing advices from others, how to judge. That's the first thing. And they also are not so easily influenced by one person. So in my opinion, maybe what I have, that I have seen really good judging in the world championships, I think it has been always then when both of the judges have been like sure what they are doing. Like they have their own vision, how a strong dog looks in protection or how the active dog looks in obedience. And, and, you know, they have their own vision. They are not there just like a puppets who are chosen to be there because somebody wants to influence them. Because I think in many of those bad cases, they have been the judges that, you see what I mean? I, I know what you mean. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to say this aloud. And I know that I would be maybe, if you were crucified for your comments against the PSA, but I maybe will be for this reason, but I don't care. I honestly don't care anything anymore. I haven't been caring about this for a long time. So I think that we have been selecting there or we have let some people select judges there for only that reason that they can influence on them if needed. So the judging process would be more important. And I'm also against the idea that we have the same supervisors from each year in a row. We shouldn't have them. We should have different supervisors in different years. And not only one person deciding who will be them. The other person. This is where I'm so torn because I agree with you 100%.

And at the same time, I'll tell you where I don't disagree, where I disagree. And I don't have an answer. That's the problem. I wish I have an answer. Let's say there is a, there is a, some, I don't know, tendency movement. Okay. This is kind of where we want to go with the sport. And then this changes. And then the next year, whomever is the supervisor doesn't necessarily have that vision. And now, and I, I don't want you to picture any, any specific competition. I'm just hypothetical. Yep. You know, like, let's say I am, let's say you and I, not that we will ever be, but let's say you and I will be judging FMBB. And we have, we, we actually have talked way before and we have a, a good idea of what we want to show to everybody. Hey, this is kind of what we like. This is where we want to go. And we have a, whatever that is. Right. And we do that for a couple of years. And then the next person that comes, he has a totally, it's actually like, like the opposite of where it is. Yeah. And, and, and now that will really confuse if anything, I don't know if it's the right word to say, but that, that will create confusion. We're like, well, I thought that was it, but now this year it's not. So which one is it? I think the problem is, I, I, again, I'm, I'm totally like, I don't, I mean, I'm coming from communist country. You know where I'm coming from. I, I've lived under dictatorship. I know what it is to somebody to tell you what music you can listen to or how long your hair should be. I mean, this was insane, crazy times. But as we are changing, I think it's important to have other people. But ultimately our problem, the way I see it is, we need to have a unified vision. What is IGP? Where do we want to go? What do we want to promote? And if, if this critical points are not sorted out and we keep bouncing from one extreme, two years, and then another extreme, two years. So that, that's a difficult problem as well. No. Yeah. I think that the, you are, you are right. This way that we cannot just let everybody talk and then choose the one that shout is the loudest. But we definitely would need to collect countries together much more, listen to the competitors who have been there and, and try to find what the majority wants. Like what is, what is really the majority? Like, and also collecting judges together and talking about these issues we are facing. Mm-hmm. And what they think about it and how, how could we solve. So I would love to have judges and competitors once to sit all together and, and, and getting their ideas.

Um, and, and also giving all countries or competitors a bit more time, say that if we would, for example, send, um, a letter to all, um, or email to all, um, team leaders and say, hey, please interview your team members and write down, or even to all countries or member countries and say, we would like to hear your opinion. And here are the topics, uh, like the, about judging, about the evaluation, about, uh, all the things around our sport. Mm-hmm . And then we could, um, and then I think it, it would be the, the, the, the drop of FNB for example, if you talk about FNB or FCI working to commission, but they should really not just say that they are reading it, but they actually should be, um, um, um, like listening to us. Just giving like, like, like, like understanding that it is important nowadays to be transparent. It is important to, to, to hear, hear them, give them the voice, hear them and say, okay, actually those are good ideas. Maybe this is not, not, not good idea because only two countries wanted that, but, um, 35 other countries didn't want that direction. You see, or maybe that country is just the beginning of their sport career. Maybe they don't know so much about this sport yet, but then we have, uh, uh, seven other countries who have been like most successful countries in the last 12 championships, you know, and they all agree that this is important thing to consider in the next championships. And so on. So they could get some kind of view, an idea. That's at least what I would feel that it would be more democratic and, and, and, and, and, and then try to find out that what, what, uh, what the commission members then think. Yeah. I understand they all are busy. They have their own life, but they are still the commission members, so they should work with that. They should, uh, consider about that. And, and, and, and then I also wanted to commission commissions. I don't know how it works in FCI, but at least in FCI, it should be working more as a commission and not so that it's like one specific person who, example, who decides, or it's the board who eventually, but it's the board. I mean, the board always decides, but if they are just like running over all the decisions, what the commission has suggested, it's also making no sense to have even commission then. Mm-hmm.

But I would like to see something, some improvements like this. And, and then, um, and, and it's same like in commissions, but like, like when we talk about those force free, force free things and how we can change the society and their, um, how they see our sport and how we can train our dogs in the future. But the same is in this, uh, in these commissions that how to say it, it should be allowed to speak your voice up there and everybody should be there listened. If they don't want to listen, some commission members, uh, then I think that person shouldn't be in this commission then if it's not worth of listening that person. And, and, and, and that conversation comes to, to show that disconnect of, of, of, okay, well, they have, or he has an idea and that's what they want. But then the whole other community doesn't agree with that idea. Now, that's, that's actually healthy. I don't think we need to agree with each other, but that should not, like, I don't like, I never liked the idea of somebody kind of looking down on everybody and dictating, oh, that that's very shitty. Now, at the same time, everything in human history starts with somebody having an idea, a vision, a suggestion that goes against the whole world. I mean, you can think of whatever, Galileo Galilei, I mean, or who was the one that got burned, uh, because he said that, no, the sun doesn't go around the earth. The earth goes around the sun. But everybody up to that point believed otherwise. So what, what I'm trying to say is that sometimes the masses are not necessarily correct, even though they have the, the number, right? Yes. But unless. They should be still heard. Yes, exactly. They have to be heard. They have to, they, they, there is no way that there is no dialogue. Yes. Like we need to talk about it. And if, if you have a point and it's very logical point, I think we go with that. And if you have a counterpoint, that's actually really makes more sense. But, but we need to, we, it just the, to me, it's the dumbest thing to, to continue to stay disconnected. Like we, we, we have to, hey, I think this is it. Well, let's talk about it. Let's, let's have a little bit, even if it's confrontation, let's, let's see what makes sense, what doesn't make sense. And once we establish where IGP needs to go. At this point, I think it's critically important that we do have a variety of people involved in, in this position. So it's not a dictatorship.

And, and I think it also makes the competitors in this way also more satisfied because when you feel that you actually can have an impact, you can have some conversation with people. You actually can face to face communicate, or we can have an online meeting where you can participate. We can talk about those topics. And it is definitely the feeling that, I think the worst feeling is always when you want to quit. When you feel that it doesn't matter. I can't affect anyhow to my future. But if you can have that conversation, that would be the first thing to establish because, you know, we are not in the war, like competitors against the judges or competitors against the commissions. But sometimes it feels like this, because people are good in doing false, I don't know how to say it, connections, or they understand things wrongly or they get that feeling. Because the feeling is bad if there is no connection. It feels that somebody is dictating. And somebody doesn't want to listen to us. Maybe they don't, it's not be, I don't even believe that the people in, let's say, FMBB, that they wouldn't like to listen to us, or in the board, or that the commission wouldn't like to listen to the members, or competitors. It's possible. But it looks like this because nobody does anything for it. Nobody tries to connect each other. Correct. And there is no mechanism to have that conversation. Nobody has thought that this is important. And that's kind of the whole point that I have is we need to create a mechanism where competitors and judges and everybody involved in IGP listen to each other. And first of all, we agree where we want to go. You know, we agree where we want to go. And can the countries like if you consider for example, let's say the IGP competitors in USA, or the team members in the USA, do they how united they are? Because if I compare the Finnish team members, I would say at least when I have been talking with a lot of Finnish team members in the recent years, I think we are quite united with the idea where we want to go. So we agree kind of, I mean, everybody may have a little bit different idea of the ideal performance, for example, perhaps. But still, I think that all the main points, I think we very much agree how we would like to see IGP developing or what kind of judging we would like to have and so on. So I think that is also interesting to see if it's the same in other countries. Right.

So, because I think that's the first thing because we can have, I don't believe that we can have a meeting that every person who wants to join can just jump into the meeting because otherwise they could be like suddenly 200 people. But if we have the person who presents the country and that comes to this meeting and every country has their own person representative. But that's like on again, like on one hand, on one side, that's super democratic and super like, like it just makes sense, right? But then there is that other side that I also can understand. And that is, you know, like in social media, there is so many cool memes of like there is everybody and there is this person daring to say, hey, you know, there is a different way. There is one very cool one where, I mean, there is so many memes of this kind of, you know, the masses versus somebody that actually has an idea that it's, that it can change the world, you know? And we cannot, like we have to, in some way we need to respect the masses and in some way we need to respect that one that says, hey, I have an idea. I have an idea because typically those that are, and that's just how human history, there is just over and over it's proven how we evolve. It's because this one person comes and says, I have a different idea. And typically nobody may agree with it, but then with some time it gets accepted. I mean, I've done this sport for, for many years and I have witnessed how different periods are coming in and how the sport is changing. The dialogue between all of us has to happen to where we understand what we want. Like, for example, like when we look at obedience, what do we want to see? And yes, the rules say, and even like the new rules are trying to kind of pinpoint a little bit more, but they're still left for interpretation. But we are looking for some cooperation. In protection, we are looking for a fight for a, you know, a dominant dog fighting against a helper. Like we can bend it and we can make it to be a sport and whatever. And then I think we, unless we start to talk about the actual things. So, and again, like I, my, my understanding of, of Schutzhund and IPO and IGP, it, it's very different than the younger generation. But we, we need to decide where we want to go. And I will give you, like, we will, I, what I want to do is I kind of want to give you some examples and you tell me what, because I know, and, and I don't want to, like, it's not if it's right or if it's wrong way. But it's like, ultimately, what do we want to show?

So one of the really good ones, this is where it gets difficult conversation, but, but we have to have the difficult conversations. And I know many people would not like it. But those are the conversations that we need to decide what, where we want to go. So if you, if you look at protection, we have a dog that comes and guards, guards for a toy. Do we like that? Or do we not like that? Like where, where is the whole community? Like, where do we stand on that? And I don't want to say one is right and one is wrong, but we need to have the conversation. Because, like, my, my opinion, and I might be wrong. And maybe everybody is right. And that's okay. But if a dog comes in the blind and it's asking for a toy versus a dog truly having a direct intention and interaction with the guy, trying to intimidate them, not to do a behavior, not to look extremely cool. And show like you will have a, you know where I'm going with that. We, we kind of need to decide what we want. When I'm watching competitions today, barking for a toy on guarding is becoming more and more and more widely accepted. To the point where you will have, I don't know if you can see me here, but I'll try to get up a little. Yep. But you will have a helper that will, instead of being how the rules say, every helper now in a, not every helper, but the majority, including every big name helper, will hold the sleeve here. So the dog can bark for the toy. What happens if the sleeve is all the way here? Is the dog's going to. Or the right, or the right, or the right, or you have the sleeve on the other hand. Correct. Correct. You know. Correct. So when, when, when all of us know that this is how, like, we understand why the dog is staying there and what the dog is asking for. To me, it doesn't matter how beautiful the picture is. The dog in his head is not doing it for the right reason. Now, these are the, these are the kind of conversation that we need, the community has to have and say, well, because we can change it one way or another. As long as it's okay, then it's okay. But is that what we want? And then we have to agree. Right. And, and we have this, this, it's like, okay, you have a helper pretty much consistently now in, in big competitions and probably in small competitions, but I don't see small club trials. You have a helper that will make the escape. Will lock up for the re-attack the way it should.

And then on the guard will pull the sleeve away to allow the dog to do that other barking. You know what I'm talking about. It is for example, exactly what happened to my dog in our little club trial, because we knew that, or my helper, of course, you know, that it's not yet going to be the championships. And it helps the dog to be, to start barking. Of course. Yeah. Of course. But of course, it is definitely something that shouldn't happen in the championships. I mean, it, it should be there in every guarding phase the same. I mean, and, and I also like personally, I like it on that way, even whatever people say, but I like it on this way that the helpers could be a little bit different. Correct. Some helpers always pull it a bit more down. Some helpers always look it for the re-attack position that, that I think it, it would be. So, and, and even the way how the helpers are attacking in a long attack, I even like it there. If the helper is so talented, it could be possible that he puts the sleeve a little bit later in front. And some helpers who are not so talented by taking the dog safely, they have to put it earlier there. But, but I also think that, but this is of course more for really for the championships. And I think that even, even in the, if we even think about FNBB, I would say that I understand it for the finals. Maybe in the world cup, we have dogs from so many different countries who don't have the ability to train with so many extremely super helpers. So it's of course more safer for them. If the, if the Steve is more available earlier and safer for the dogs and so on. Yeah. But, but I, I, I really. Trainer, I think. I agree. I agree. I think, I absolutely believe that helper has to be able to have a little bit of freedom to put their flavor in the fight. It cannot be just very robotic. Just like anything robotic, you can see it, you know it. And it tests better the dogs that if we have a little bit different helpers, because you can really see that you cannot prepare the dog for everything. And if the helpers have a chance to do a little bit different things, like put their personality into it, it is better for the championships. So I see it a little bit this way also, that the championships, no matter who is the helper, how the helper will attack, how he will hold the sleeve and so on and so on. The dog should be still able to perform really great. And we shouldn't complain if our dogs, you know, have some problems. But this is what I believe for the championships personally, because I'm always on the way that we should test the dog.

In protection, I really think that we should always have so solid dogs that little changes don't affect on them. And the dog should be good in all phases, in guarding, in attacks and in pressure phases and so on. Yeah. Yeah. And I have had personally dogs that have been taught to be barking on the other side. And I have had dogs who have been taught to bark right in the middle and expect the sleeve. And I even know dogs that you can change it. And it wouldn't change much. And we should be able to train our dogs so that they actually don't. I mean, that's a technical thing that handlers are teaching their dogs. Yes. So that has nothing to do with the dominance. If the dog is not barking on the sleeve, the dog can be barking in that hand side where the helper doesn't have the sleeve. And it can be active in the guarding. It can be looking to the face of the helper and it's still not dominant. But this is just something that you have to see. So this is the dog's 40 position. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I agree with you with everything you're saying. I always give these examples like at my class with my students. Like you can have some yogi doing some crazy yoga position. And his brain just, he's somewhere in a different universe, right? And then there is me trying to mimic him. And I'm in exactly the same position. But mentally, it's a big difference, right? And so when we are judging dominance, and in Europe it's not even right to say aggression, but I can say it because I live here. But when we live, when we're trained protection dog, you need dominance, confidence, and you need some amount of aggression. And there is a very big difference when a dog is demanding throw my toy versus let me, you move and let me fuck you up. Like it's a very different mental process. And when we shift, like I just don't understand why we need to shift the training to this kind of fake reality. And then everybody has to buy that lie that everybody knows that's not what's happening. In my opinion, that deteriorates the sport. Even though the idea of training it this way is brilliant. But it's not like if we say, hey, this is not acceptable. That's like, what are we doing? That's not perfection. Like I would, if I'm a judge, I would have the courage to tell this to anybody. I don't care who that person is, but I will be like, what are you doing? Because there is, like training has evolved so much. We don't need to come up with, like you are working out now. Imagine if you have the dumbbells and they show that they are, I don't know, 20 kilos. But they are actually full of air. And you are showing off.

I can do Bulgarian splits. Actually, they are only two kilos, but I have put the zero behind there. Right? Right? Yes. So. But then you don't see results either. Things like this are very, yeah. So I think more than modern training, we can become very creative. But are we derailing? Are we like really taking away the whole meaning of what protection training is about? But I think that, you know, we can still see that I have a bit this idea that whether the dog is barking right in the middle in front of the sleeve or whether the dog is barking like a bit on that side where the helper doesn't have the sleeve. But I think that for me, it wouldn't really matter. We have to just look at the dog's attitude. If the dog really, really puts, because we have also some dogs that are able to put the pressure no matter which way they are trained. A little bit more for this direction. You see what I mean? They always naturally bring out that aggression there. And they will be dominant. If they have been, if they have been, I mean, they have been, how to say, spoken out of the aggression or they have it by nature that they are so, they enjoy of being in that kind of state of mood. But I think I wouldn't look so much like, I wouldn't take points automatically away from the dog who is barking there. But I wouldn't definitely give some more points for that if the dog is doing that. Because we have, we know from the championships, how many dogs we actually have who show a really good guarding face, regardless of their position where they are. I know so many. Well, so, or if we have dogs who, yeah. Yeah. And then it's also one more thing I wanted to say that if we see a dog who can bark really nicely, but then there will be also the next phase, how he will attack, how confident he will be in the grip and how dominant he is biting there. So, yes. So, all this should be like, first you get the impression how the dog is guarding, but then also there has to be the other path. And then you can actually see, when you see the whole performance, you can tell quite much about how the dog, how is the dog's personality. I mean, obviously it has to be trained really well because even the best dogs cannot show, cannot give everything out if they haven't been trained well. But I would say that we have a lot of dogs who have been trained as high level as they could be trained, but the dogs just don't have that inner fire for the traits that are needed to get excellent. Right. That's why it's hard to find those dogs for breeding, for example, in the World Championships at the moment. Right.

And I would agree with you that there is plenty of dogs that are totally confident, absolutely dominant, but they are just derailed. They are sidetracked at one point to do this kind of barking. And it can look very impressive because all of a sudden they are away from the sleeve and they are like in your face. But what are they asking for is a toy. And we all know that. And as a helper, when I work a dog and I've worked, I mean, that's what I do. I'm a helper besides anything else. I know how the mood changes from a dog expecting a bite to a dog expecting a toy. Even what bothers me a lot is that if the dog comes right here and the sleeve is kind of, you know, put aside to help to come here. If I make a re-attack, that dog is not mentally prepared to take the re-attack because he's dominant, but he's completely shifted from fighting to give me a reward. Do you agree with that or no? It a little bit depends on the dog. It depends also a little bit the dog's maybe nerves. Some dogs have been, maybe they have a bit more thinner nerves, easily triggered, and they can be quite ready to bite whatever you do. You know what I mean? Like, even they would, how to say, I'm only talking about like, I'm talking about one specific dog that I know really well and who has been trained by a toy in barking. But he also has been rewarded, like, like, like, like, from barking with a sleeve, like many times. So not only with a toy, but I would say that he has been at least quite ready to react when the helper has then attacked on him when he has been barking. Of course, if the position is completely bad, the dog is too crooked or something there, or the sleeve is down, then of course the problem is there that the sleeve, yeah. But in those cases, when the sleeve is in front, then the dog is, it's a bit difficult now to explain this. Right. I can't be that the more confident dog wouldn't be then like, like, like reacting. Yeah. But I mean, there is the thing about confident, not confident dog, but there is also two confident dogs. And the one is trained to shift his emotional state from fight to a Frisbee. And not that I will ever want to become a helper in a world championship. But if, if I give a re-attack and then I make an out for the guarding where the handler comes in and I don't allow the dog, I don't give him that little space, which if you watch any competition, you, it's so clearly obvious that it's kind of hurts my eyes. But if I stay like this, what you will end up seeing is a dog that instead of staying here, will come over here.

And now we can argue, well, maybe he's not avoiding, but he clearly has shifted from fighting drive to give me my toy. And if I go out, he will bite something very shitty. Right. So he's not prepared to, to counter a re-attack anymore. Or at least he has more risk to get not so good creep. Right. Right. Depending how badly he is on the left side and how bad. Right. If I'm a judge and it's a big competition and the helper stands with the sleeve a little bit to the side and I say, no, no, do that. Now I want to see the dog coming in. Is he going to interact with me or is he really going to come here? And then we have a big problem. It's degrading the sport, in my opinion. Is that now that technique, and I have many other examples, but that technique has become so predominant that pretty much every helper that you see in competition now, they're not like, like we used to protect ourselves with the sleeve. Because if you do that, this is actually a really bad idea. So these are the kind of little things that judges, competitors, we need to kind of talk about it. And maybe, maybe I'm wrong, maybe you're right, maybe, but unless we decide what we want IGP to be, we're starting to have this, in my opinion, fake pictures that everybody knows this is a lie. And it doesn't mean that the dog is confident or not. It's just a complete shift of mood that everybody is okay with. It's actually interesting discussion because I personally right now have this older dog of mine who has been taught to bark the toy in the blind. And then we are, he has been silent in his guarding phases mostly in, in, on the field. And we just decided to start to teach him now that he has to be barking at least in those guarding phases where I come to take him under control. And, but when the helper there leaves the sleeve in front and he barks, he stays always in the middle. He will not change his position then there. Yes. He only changes then if the helper push, like moves. But at least now we are in that point that he hasn't been yet. So he can, he can sometimes make silent guarding. Sometimes he makes the active guarding. So he's not yet so well conditioned to my command. Right. What guarding he should be able to make. But I have noticed now this interesting thing there that he barks there in completely different position when the sleeve is in front than what he does on the blind. Because in the blind we have used like box where he should kind of, he, he comes always more on the left side and so on.

Of course, the truth is also that if there would be a helper who has the right hand sleeve in the blind, then I don't know where he would then go. Would he then go more in the middle? Perhaps. Yes. I think so. Because of the, at least, or he would bark on the, on the elbow side. But I don't know, but, uh, but yeah, but like my argument with, with this technique is no matter at what time in the routine, the dog has to be prepared to re-attack. Right. Right. Yeah. It has to, that's our sport. That's like, this is why we, we have this there. And I'm actually even thinking about doing my dog, like in every single guarding as a barking, that he would make all guarding faces barking. Because, uh, we, we had a, we had a situation that I made, you know, I'm, you know, that the rules have changed. And, and I thought that IGP two before there was only one, um, or somehow I remembered wrongly. I don't know what, but I had a feeling that in the past there was only long attack and not to, not, not re-attack after long attack in IGP. You should have seen me doing IGP two. But however, I missed it. So I gave my dog the command, like, like, you know, in the trainings, uh, right after the long attack. And my helper was like, idiot. There is, there are two attacks in IGP two. I'm like, Oh, sorry. Sorry. So my dog was barking. I'm like, it doesn't matter. He took a really nice creep also after. So it doesn't matter. But, um, but I'm thinking about it could be even better because I, I'm not so pleased with my dog's silent guarding. I think his active guarding are better. I mean, yeah. And I think that's the silent versus active. That's a, we, we have to try to maximize what that dog is. Right. And, and I think that's, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and it's a really funny thing because a lot of people think that, oh, it, of course it's clear that to make a really excellent guarding as a, as an active guarding, the dog has to be, has to have a certain talent for it. For sure that he's able to make a really nice guarding and also bite well after that. But it's the same also with a silent guarding that some dogs are more talented for actually a lot of more dogs can do at least very good active guarding. Absolutely. To do really excellent silent guarding. I mean, that is really, really, it, it asks a lot from the dog. And that's the, that's the beauty of the, the, like, this is kind of where we want to stay. I think in IGPs to show like it can be quiet, it can be silent and you can go right next to the dog and try to push him away.

And they're like, yeah, you pushed me away, but nothing's changing. Right? Like, like you, you, you see the, like the, the idea I, in my opinion of IGPs to, to show the, the talent of the dog. And what I'm finding with this kind of fake, you know, like, I, I think it's, it's just, it breaks my heart watching how everybody continues to accept it. And again, like, I know I'm going to have all of you against me here and, and that's okay. But it changes the, the, what the game is about. So let's talk about staying with protection. You have a dog that naturally bites and makes a position, right? But then you have so many cool techniques to teach the dog to make a position, being on the escape, being on the drive. But the one is thought behavior, the one's natural behavior. And the, and then there is the one that is purely doing it from being very unsure. And now as a judge, imagine being a judge and you're trying to kind of sort out these three dogs. One bites and he's trying to stay away just because he's trying to stay away. He's afraid. Yeah. Right. Then there is the other one that naturally saying, you motherfucker are not taking one step forward. And then there is the other one that is trained that if he doesn't make a position, he's going to be running to a blind or a chair or whatever is going to happen. So being the judge and being me as a breeder, being you as a breeder, we want to know who's who. But it becomes very tricky. But then there comes the next guarding phase and then the lucky one comes the next attack phase again. And then there comes the way how the dog bites then under the pressure when the helper is confronting him from directly from the front. What the dog is then doing is he then also trying to go on the left or right or out of the stick or something. Or if he's there like a really dominant dog should be. So I think and how he is then fighting when the helper locks the sleeve. Is he then like because I think then when we when we put all these parts together, then we can really see what the dog is all about. Yes. But if you only look one part of it, we can't be sure. But I think always when we see the next part and the next thing what happens after that, then we start to see the real quality of the dog. Because we know that some things you just can't you just can't teach or you cannot hide everything so often unless you are like extremely talented helper. But I don't know, should I say lucky us or not lucky us?

But we don't have so many people in the world because it also needs very talented handler and it needs a very talented helper who work as a team that they can really get some average potato of the potato field to look like a flower. So it's a little different then. And I think but everything what you mentioned about the dog's qualities here and what the judges should see, what I really would wish for is that the judges wouldn't look something that, oh, in the back transport, the dog is super good position. But when the helper turns the corner or the dog goes a little bit crooked or when you do the side transport and then you stop next to the helper or the dog is a little bit crooked there and looks a helper to the eyes and everything. But, you know, he's a, so something like it shouldn't go that much obedience that we really have in obedience in my opinion. I mean, in protection, I mean, in protection, it should be, I don't mean that the dog can be completely out of control. But I think if we really see a dog that is really good in biting phases and attack phases and guarding and he's under control, we shouldn't kill that dog and the handler team to the field by reducing some points for completely unnecessary things. Then it comes for me like, I don't know, I think it loses a bit of meaning. For me, this is something that I want to see it in obedience. In obedience, it's like there is about the handler and the dog and the body help or something. But if the handler takes the dog under control in protection and he makes a little body help, you know, is it like poos or something, you know, it's like, so what?

Of course, this was böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle böyle session and this is where we are failing when I'm saying judges need to give a critique or judges and competitors need to kind of hash out this like for example that little thing is it okay to do that or is it not okay because if we are kind of yeah sometimes it's okay sometimes it's not okay anybody can do anything but if we have a good vision blind search right if the doc is looking inside or not every single dog knows he's gonna be in the helper so is it really so important that the dog is like checking because if the dog is in the mission he will realize if there is a helper in the fourth blind yes no yes don't get me started with the blind search because it's just like so frustrating oh he didn't check the blind how do you know like a dog can go and you can go very fast and with your peripheral vision you know if somebody is in or it's not but if but if let's say a dog just flies by the blind but then there is the other dog that kind of comes and it's like oh where is the toy that's on the magnet well exactly great my magnet ball okay what are we training then i wish that we step back a little bit and start because of the knowledge we have a an incredible amount of knowledge as trainers right now i don't think we need this little

sideways fake things i think we can i mean if that was done 20 years ago i would say okay you had no you had no idea how to do it so go ahead but when you have like hard dogs right if that's the problem and we have so hard dogs that we need to now put more emphasize for dogs that are easier to handle in protection but that's not the problem that's not the problem we don't have that problem but when i have a judge taking points for a dog that didn't do that and just went around the blind and then have a dog that comes around jumps up to get something realizes that there is nothing and goes around and that dogs get more points than the other one now i have a real problem because we are we're as as community we're reinforcing that fake like we're sidestepping of the purpose of protection training in that situation yeah and again i don't know if i'm right or wrong i mean clearly i am all the generation of trainer i see it in a very different way um maybe i'm wrong i don't know but but not having that conversation and not having judges come up and say hey what do you what is okay is that okay is it not okay like you cannot kind of keep playing games with uh he should have been more of this or no like you can really tell me what is not what you like but what the community wants to see in a protection dog yeah and i think of course everybody can have their opinion just that my opinion is the best but uh naturally um but yeah but at least at least i i agree i don't say that my opinion is it's just my opinion but i would love judges to look much more especially in protection phase but of course also in obedience but especially in protection uh i would love them to um evaluate more the dogs uh natural personality traits um their confidence motivation dominance aggression um bravery and and then forgiving a little minor beauty mistakes in the control correct i mean then if the dog has no drive even it doesn't matter how well the dog is under control because everybody knows it's if if you can drive with your car only you know 40 kilometers in an hour or something it's much more easier to break down you know but when you are driving with lamborghini um 270 kilometers in a miami highway you maybe need a bit more better you know but it's much yeah but anyway it's just it is i mean it's just more difficult to generally well but but mia unless we talk about this all of us and we decide where we want to go if we keep it in the in this dark space like oh yeah sometimes sometimes maybe it's okay maybe it's not the road doesn't and then we are leaving the door open for

creativity which in one way as a trainer i appreciate it because you know it's intelligence like okay well that's smart way to get around that problem but again where we are today with how what we know about training and if we decide well that's okay or that's not okay if we say that's not okay everybody can focus on put their minds in how to make it right and then we're going to come up with really good ideas collectively how to make it better instead of taking this out roads and and and fake it look like it is you know what i'm saying i think it's also it's it's so much also this that when we are looking the dogs when we are evaluating dogs in protection i always personally look if this dog would be also a good kmpb dog if this dog would be suitable for the ring sport if this dog would be suitable for military work it would be suitable to be a swat team dog or single purpose dog or a good tracking dog or something that like like um um i don't only think about actually um that you know of course when i'm a trainer and i'm training my dog to be the best possible get the best possible points in in protection phase then i'm thinking about just the points how can i get the best ones out but when i'm thinking about how the judge should be judging i would love to see the judge judging in the way that the really the good working dogs those who really possess certain qualities that they are the ones who will win or at least in in protection get the highest points the same is also in obedience if i know that there are dogs who have difficulties with their impulse control they are not they are whining easily they have difficulties to be focused they are nervy and so on i even if if there are signs that even the best handlers have had difficulties to put those things like together and and get the best out of the dog and you can see signs like that they shouldn't get they shouldn't be rewarded with excellent because when we are rewarding those dogs who don't really possess the natural qualities and we are too much uh highlighting those average dogs who are just trained super well with all tricky things like you mentioned before and then we push down those dogs who actually naturally have that talent but they just do some beauty mistakes then then the selection becomes very i always go for the genetic thing right but you see how how much of a conversation the igp community needs to have because if we and and again i i might be wrong you might be right or him or whatever but if we we say hey this is what we

want to do then we can channel our brains to train and then we can come up with really insanely brilliant ideas because there's just i mean today there is vast amount of super cool trainers that are thinking that they can make it this way or this way but they are kind of lost of what is the way and and i mean i i am lost too like i i i just there are certain things that i i feel i i wouldn't do just because it's my personality but i i have chosen for example myself i have chosen to put a lot of magnet balls hanging or magnet tucks hanging in the blinds in order to teach my dog this stupid artificial behavior right because i know that some judges want to see that and i have been also trying to get my dog barking on the uh on that side where the steve isn't because in the past some judges didn't give you high points if the dog wasn't barking there yes so kind of i have changed also the way how i train just to please the majority of judges and in order to succeed the best i can in the competitions and this is ex that that's like i i mean we reached probably the most important point about in our conversation and this is the failure of what do you want to see like what do you guys want to see because i i can train it but what is that it's okay and what is that it's not okay and and yeah you know that that's like that's my whole point that's like i mean you just put it right there tracking you know there was a long time ago this super important thing that the dog should be like guarding the object the article you know you remember this i mean they were like the the dog shouldn't be looking like be relaxed and look the handler so then i started to train my dogs to to to look at the article and then and then the next thing was that judges got an idea that now it's a mistake if the dog is doing that right should be more relaxed right yes like what the hell come on yes it would like again like i i'm just so upset and sad that we don't have this conversation with everybody because we can we can just skyrocket our everything like igp can become just like them i mean it's still the most amazing sport there's no question in my head but it can be on a whole different level i'll i'll and i hear hear this one so you have a the obedience you have the long down and you have the dog that's laying down and it's just i mean nothing can move that that dog is just laser focused things like right now there is the other dog that's laying down and it's looking around because it's just laying down on one hand a judge can say well that dog is really intense but then there is a different argument to

this that i can bring well that dog maybe is insecure it's just like begging for mama or daddy to to interact and and you know so how do you make that you know what i'm saying like there is that dog that is yeah it's just not sure and it's like oh and then the judge is like well that's very intense down excellent very difficult i'm not i'm not gonna tell a judge how to evaluate it but but you have to as a judge you have to consider well do we do we all need to do that because the dog is on a long down there is he's doing nothing as long as he doesn't get up and he has his mouth open and he's very comfortable and he's laying down correctly and he's looking what's up versus that dog that is like maybe that dog is not really so good maybe he's just very needy and lacking security you know so many different takes to this and you know and then there is also a very interesting part what i was thinking about in tracking that when did it happen that tracking that the dog should be suddenly very highly aroused like high arousal level in tracking because i thought the most important thing is the dog is motivated he's focused he's solid he's willing to work there um and then we have i don't talk about now dogs who really show pressure because yes that you know you can tell you can tell you can tell it and and and and and we have dogs who are very good themselves in pressurizing themselves even the handler wouldn't do that and i have been also owning one dog like this so i know what i'm talking about but um but then we we really have dogs that some dogs they have the tail high because that's the natural position and they are just highly aroused even when they are searching food because most or little articles or whatsoever and then we have those dogs that when they are calm and they are focused the tail is more down yes and then suddenly it came like this i really heard about this that oh we should use only judges in the world championships who really don't give excellent for those dogs who don't have the tail up yes and and i think that is very very interesting because yeah then the handlers and i have seen these handlers they are so obsessed about tail that they start to artificially interrupt their dogs tracking and praise their dog all the time like super super good in order to get the tail up yes in order to the behavior looks better and then maybe when the dog gets more highly more hectic you know we get the tail up but the but the tracking itself is not so effective or or you know how you you know what i mean i i know no i will give you a good example of this

like with with playing chess you will have you will have one chess player where he will sit and he will be just like this and wouldn't move and then you will have a different chess player that he will make a move then he'll get up and he will start moving because he has to in order to keep his mind so he can be successful in the game and you cannot say the one is better than the other and the one is more excited or the other one is more suppressed because of the way their brain is uh uh uh taking the information and and make it make themselves function at their ultimate best and yeah and i i totally agree with this the whole tail thing it's a it's a sad thing about igp but even in our subconscious mind when we select a dog we start to now look for a little bit of a natural curly tail because no matter if the dog is suppressed or no that tail is the tail is like that right so what are we creating and some dogs yeah and and some dogs who don't have that we are like oh the dog is like super good but we don't like his tail like and if you really think about any if we think about the real working dog who is effective in his work the tail doesn't count a penny it doesn't matter at all what the dog is like how how is the tail um but um and and of course like and i have personally been witnessing dogs who track like extremely well and they can do long lasting work and they have been real working dogs both they have been competing in the world championships but also in the in the they have been military dogs who track the tail up and the tail is all the time like a little bit shaking but still the dog is able like you said about the chess player really make a super like put the focus where it should be put and then i have seen also dogs that the tail is low and it's not like under the belly or something but the tail is just it's relaxed but it's low and the dog is like super focused with his whole face and it makes extremely good track long tracks um it don't miss the corners and and so on so it's it's it's sad that we look sometimes the beauty more than the effectiveness and that's where the again like the the communication between trainers judges i think i think many people that listen to us right now will agree with everything we're saying and sabi sakri of course and it also depends on their experiences if you only have had dogs a certain type then of course it's it also affects like our perspective this is what gets sometimes for me come kind of like like you you would have the the crowd let's say i mean we don't have that much

crowd anymore but when we have a crowd watching we have to understand that the majority of the people they don't understand because if we have a commentator that is good they can educate if we have judge that gives a critique they can educate but when we just throw a score we're allowing everybody to kind of say well that's very shitty that dog was better it's like no you people how many of you understand you don't probably know how many points excellent healing is and what is sufficient healing you you probably have no idea but you have very strong opinion about it yeah and i don't blame the crowd i blame actually the whole igp community because this is where we are failing of education of what it is what is what is where we are going what do we want and and first of all we need to agree all of us we need to kind of have this hard conversation it's like okay you're training this way i'm training very different which one when it comes down to if both dogs are exactly correct in the mechanical work which one we decide to promote which training we decide to promote which talent of the dog and i'm not saying one is right on the other but unless we have this conversation and we agree we have had a long long uh broadcast it's amazing i love it mia i um that's what so what i think is we maybe maybe we we stop it so everybody can stay on it and then we do a little more some other time soon um yeah yeah because i i i really really think that this is so good for everybody to just to listen and and and at least start to think about things and you know uh maybe maybe we we make a part two and we we really focus on obedience how we kind of did the protection a little bit and yeah and um you know like in obedience i i know there is just so much also and and again like unless we start talking about it we we never gonna come up to a united vision of hey let's this is this is let's put our training hats and let's see how we can train for this because that's what we really all agree that we want to see and something like this and i like also and i also like this way that when we want to talk about protection we talked about obedience we talked about uh tracking so we actually um we talked about some really um how to say concrete things so we gave and we were talking about like the tail position in tracking all the article indication or we talked about in obedience the long down or or we talk about in protection some um some um like um how important is to check the client or or or barking certain position or something we should be unimportant

um little details um and we should more look the dog's behavior and emotions and attitude um so i think that that is also interesting because it gives also more uh concrete things to the people who are listening this podcast so uh who maybe some are not so experienced yet or or or haven't been thinking about it because if we always talk so abstract abstractly or yes cooking up i i always have a have difficulties to listen when judges and competitors are talking but then we just talk about abstract things and saying yeah we have to change this for that but we don't really talk about from exercise to exercise yes so so so let's do this like we we close i don't know how long we've talked i mean we can talk more but i think it's it's smart it's like one o'clock at night i know so it's smarter for us to to do part two and and and i think we both have some other things to think about and yeah but this is like i i absolutely uh uh love to have this conversation and that that was one of the main reasons to have you to talk is because i know you understand and i know the passion and i am there's just not quite like we can have that conversation and there is as you said there is just a lot of amount a great amount of very excited trainers out there that there may be training and missing the whole point of what it's about you know oh yeah hey this is this is interesting there is a judges that also are exactly on the same boat you know i really really when you now mentioned about this just some really interesting thing came to my mind uh i was talking with another very experienced handler who is also coaching people and giving private training sessions to sport people and and doing seminars and she mentioned me the same um what i have been noticing that a lot of young people now we talk about young women age between uh 18 years to 30 and they are having their first igp dog malinois german shepherds and and they were training obedience and and lots of them they had a good feeling with their dogs nice relationship their dogs were doing pretty obedience pretty healing and they were so worried about when the dogs didn't walk like how to say the dogs didn't jump but they were um pacing instead of uh you know walking like yes how you say trotting you know yeah and and the dogs have been maybe one year old or something and they were so stressed out of that and and and and the handlers didn't have fun and the assistant oh no he's pacing again it looks good from the front but he's pacing again and i'm like oh um and and and and and when my dog has been pacing when he's like learning the healing and

sometimes he's pacing but he doesn't try to trump i'm like that doesn't matter yes it's like the unimportant thing and it can spoil your dog's uh mood and your mood and and everything if you are so stressed about something like that that that that also comes to i i mean i mean one of the the most fundamental things is when you're training you have to you have to know what you're training for you you have to know the rules to some like you don't need to know them a judge level if you know i'm a judge level you're really good i it's highly recommended but if you don't know the rules and you're training and you're spending an incredible amount of time and you're doing something that some coach is telling you to do that actually is very counterproductive at the end and and and you cannot blame that coach you can only blame yourself because it's very easy to just print or or open online yes but the one thing is this because we talk about unnatural walking and and that shouldn't be allowed in healing and then then then they hear the young trainers they hear that we i for example i have been talking about good rhythm that i try to enhance the good rhythm when they are puppies but i mean about not really bouncing not putting the butt on the ground right and if the dog is then when we change for example from food reward to the toy reward or even we start directly with the toy or whatever is the beginning if the dog is sometimes pacing pacing is a natural way of walking if you really think about animals it's not maybe what we want them to do we would like them to walk um the opposite way with their legs uh but it's not really mistake but when they have been hearing so much about the unnatural thing or natural thing or dogs you should look about the rhythm and then they consider it's not the right rhythm because a dog is moving like that and then they stress out of that so so that's also the interpretation of the rules that what is the natural can the judge take points away if the dog is pacing and that's yes yes yes this is these are these are the mega questions that we need to call out and we need to talk i always i mean you you you love dancing i know and obedience it's like you you either can do salsa together or you can count one one two one two three and and be very just like this and but let's leave this for the other one i think this was amazing i i absolutely love that conversation yes thank you so much we go again a lot of fun i didn't even realize the time was so much i know you know you know event of yes all right so um thank you have a nice day thank you see you again

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